


Just Like The Old Days, But Better!

by pissjesus



Series: Gorillaz happy family times [1]
Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Comedy, Crossover Pairings, F/F, Family, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gay Character, Gen, Humor, LGBTQ Character, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Noodle (Gorillaz), Surprise characters later on bb, Team as Family, it gets more dramatic later, trying my best to work with the loose canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 37,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26162290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pissjesus/pseuds/pissjesus
Summary: Despite a tumultuous career as a band, things have been better than ever as of late. Noodle has a "girl she's been talking to," 2D's found his inner peace, Russel doesn't have to worry about holding the band together, and Murdoc is more pleasant to be around (he even showers now). But Noodle still has some hesitation about bringing home this "girl she's been talking to" to her band, and Murdoc and Russel might have some hesitation about letting Noodle grow up.
Relationships: Noodle/Hatsune Miku
Series: Gorillaz happy family times [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899838
Comments: 33
Kudos: 93





	1. Just Like the Old Days, but Better!

Even back then it was uncommon for them to all be present at breakfast, yet it still feels nostalgic. Noodle sits across from Russell, adjacent to Murdoc on one side and 2D on the other like an unholy trinity. Everything’s been much quieter since Murdoc’s rescue from the mountains. Perhaps he’s been humbled. A brush with death in the sewer and having to be rescued by your pseudo-daughter will do that to you.

“And that’s why I say we eat the bloody Royal Family!”

"Even the babies?” Noodle retorts.

“Well they’re toddlers now,” Murdoc says.

Russell and 2D are on a different wavelength, debating each other on something equally passionate and equally inane.

“I fink the pose,” 2D says, stretching his wingspan to demonstrate. “Is loik a T-pose, when the characters in the video games aren’t loaded yet, it represents Sinji’s ‘remakin the universe not ‘bein done yet.”

Russell grips his coffee. “The pose? The crucifix pose? You don’t think the crucifix pose has  _ anything _ to do with the religious imagery throughout the entirety of Evangelion?”

“Well if you interpret it loik that,”

“No, I  _ know _ it’s religious! That’s the whole show!”

“Do you sods mind?” Murdoc interrupts. “You’re making me itch. Anyway, as I was saying, I think the libertarian candidates have a shot at-?”

“Libertarian? Murdoc, that’s American politics.” Noodle says.

“What?”

“‘Libertarian’ isn’t a party here. What the hell are you on about?”

“Aw, hell,” Murdoc mutters. “I forgot we ain’t there anymore. I haven’t been caught up on British politics in jail.”

“You were in jail for like, 9 months.”

“What’s going on now?”

“Uh,” Noodle starts. “Brexit?”

“What the hell is Brexit?”

“It’s been going on for years!”

“I must’ve been drunk.”

“Shinji is a bad person! You’re supposed to think he’s a bad person!” Russell says, his voice slicing through the congruent conversation.

“I fink it makes him sympathetic,” 2D says.

“There they go.” Noodle says. “I don’t know if I’m up to listening to more talk about Evangelion before 12.”

“Oi, Noodle,” Murdoc says in a way that’s more  _ oi, fellas _ , “how’s that friend of yours?” The green one?”

2D and Russell turn to attention. Noodle feels three pairs of eyes on her.

“I wanted to stop hearing about Evangelion, not have the spotlight.” Noodle says, shifting so she’s sitting on one foot and letting the other brush the floor. “He’s good, I’m meeting him with Jenny and Cherry later.”

“Hope you don’t mind me ‘askin, but are you and him…”

Noodle’s face curls in disgust. “Ugh, no. He’s just a friend.”

Murdoc lowers his voice to a smoker’s whisper: “I didn’t give you a complex did I?”

“NO!” Noodle curls her hands and cringes into her whole body. Russel shoots Murdoc a filthy look. 2D’s expression remains empty as a post-Christmas wrapping paper tube.

“Alright, alright, I got it. Then you fancy any ladies?”

“Don’t embarrass her, Muds.” Russell intrudes.

“No, it’s fine, we can talk about me and get back to anime.” Noodle says. “Yeah, I’m talking to this one girl, she’s really great. I’m also meeting up with her later.” She nods nervously as she speaks.

“Are we gonna get to meet her?” Murdoc asks.

“Yeah” 2D chimes in. “I’d rather like to.”

“Uh, yeah, at some point, I just don’t want to like, move too fast with her, she’s not like, a U-Haul lesbian, you know? More like a business lesbian.”

“I don’t know what that means, but ok,” 2D says.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll meet her, sometime. Murdoc, you like any anime that’s not Evangelion?”

Murdoc smiles like the subject at hand has flown from his mind. “I quite like Sailor Moon. It’s pretty good. Empowered women. ‘S’got lesbians, innit?”

“Yeah, there’s lesbians.”

“Wonderful!” Murdoc claps his hands in delight. “I think it’s good we’re so progressive now.”

“Sailor Moon came out in the ’90s,” Russell says.

“They had lesbians back then?” Murdoc said, in an alarmingly genuine tone. In response to everyone’s confused and jarred noises, he continues: “I just thought we raised the first one! I thought she was being innovative!”

“Hold on,” Russell says. “Murdoc, what are you? Define your sexuality.”

“Bisexual,” Murdoc responds, no irony in his eyes.

“So you know about bisexuals, and that you are one, but didn’t know what lesbians were until 10 years ago?” Noodle asks.

“More like 5,” Murdoc says.

“Even I know what a lesbian is, and I don’t even know noffin bout astrology,” 2D says. He is ignored.

“Well I didn’t know they were  _ real _ ,” Murdoc says. “I just thought they were made up!”

“Made up?” Russell repeats in disbelief.

“Yeah, like for porn,” Murdoc says.

“UGH!” Noodle screeches. She pushes her chair back and gets up from the table.

“Well I know they’re not now! I’m woke now!” He protests, as if “woke” is a real and acceptable way for this old man to refer to himself. Noodle is already in the midst of pouring bourbon into her lukewarm coffee. It’s unclear from whence she produced the bourbon.

“I’m going to Miku’s house!” She declares, pulling the cat-eared hood of her robe over her wild hair. She snatches her coffee and walks off, her slippers slap-slap-slapping the for-once fresh linoleum of the new Kong Studios.

“Noodle,” Russell says to the space where she once sat.

“Miku?” 2D says as if he’s tuned in to a new channel and caught the tail-end of the story.

“Oh, bugger!” Murdoc says in a way that means  _ oh bugger, I’ve done it again, I don’t know when to shut my bloody pie hole, do I? _

“Way to go Muds, you don’t know when to shut your pie hole do you?” Russell says, in a way that means  _ way to go, Muds, you don’t know when to shut your pie hole do you? _

Noodle winds her way down to the garage of Kong Studios, past the nonsensically angled walls, the mysterious rooms she’s yet to open, the oddball people that hang out in the numerous recording studios, the abrupt dark hallways, and windows that look out to nothing. You’d think they’d have built it better the second time around. At last, she reaches the vast, concrete garage, home of the Geep, the waterlogged Camaro, and a shiny new Winnebago to be broken in by Murdoc’s hedonism.

Noodle shoves the key into the ignition of the Geep and jerks it counter-clockwise, in a way that says  _ why doesn’t Murdoc know when to shut his pie hole? _ She sips her bourbon coffee and backs the Geep out of the garage, turns out of the long, gated driveway, and speeds off in a way that says  _ I’m going to Miku’s house _ .


	2. A Different Shade of Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle pays an impromptu visit to the "girl she's been talking to."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Miku, as in Hatsune

Noodle smiles at the blue-haired angel greeting her at the door.

“Noodle! You’re here early,” Miku says, giving her a warm embrace. “Is it your bandmates again? You usually show up in your robe when they’re bothering you.”

“Just being annoying is all. Figured coming here would be a good excuse to get out of the house,” Noodle says as she steps into the foyer. The interior of the house is modern and sleek, with polished concrete floors and color-coordinating turquoise furniture-- the antithesis of Kong Studios. “Sorry I didn’t give you any notice.”

“It’s alright,” Miku says, closing the chic metal door behind her. “I have a video conference in an hour, but you can hang out.”

“I appreciate it,” Noodle says.

“I mean, I just like hanging out with you.” Miku grazes her fingertips against Noodle’s terry-clothed arm, smiling warmly. Her aquamarine eyes fall upon the cat mug still clasped in Noodle’s hand. “Is that a mug of coffee?”

“Yeah,” Noodle says.

“You just carried the mug as you drove, you didn’t even put it in a travel cup?”

There’s only a little bourbon in it.” Noodle takes off her hood, her hair sticking out in every direction.

“You put bourbon-”

“Do you mind if I shower here?” Noodle asks.

Miku smoothes her tight ponytail with a manicured hand. “Sure, go ahead. The shower is a little weird with all the different controls, but I’ll show you how it works.”

Miku leads Noodle up the spiraling staircase, Miku’s house shoes and Noodle’s fuzzy slippers slapping the metal steps in tandem.

* * *

Noodle sits on Miku’s impossibly fluffy canopy bed, hair wet but brushed, a fresh cup of tea in hand, a soft blue nightshirt of Miku’s replacing her short bathrobe. She watches Miku set up a laptop and camera on a pristine desk. Miku still shares the cherubic face of her hologram, but with shadows of maturity under her cheekbones and carried between her thoughtful brows. She’s changed the top half of her outfit to a gray pinstripe blazer, crisp white button-up, and signature turquoise tie. She certainly knows how to keep a color palette. Noodle considers if she should have a color palette, but she likes all the colors equally and couldn’t bear to part with them-- Perhaps she could just borrow some of Miku’s sometimes.

“For Coachella?” Noodle asks.

“Yup,” Miku responds, navigating wires with the familiarity of a first language.

“I thought you’re just using the hologram,” Noodle says.

“Well, there’s still a lot of stage direction and organizing involved. If anything glitches with that hologram, it ruins the whole illusion.”

“I know it’s your thing, and it’s cool, I’m just curious: does using the hologram ever take away from the thrill of performing? It’d definitely be nice sometimes to have a hologram do it for me on days where I’m just not feeling it, but I’d miss the rush of performing.”

“I think it works for me ‘cause I’m not into the performance aspect,” Miku says. “I like making music, but I get so nervous in front of so many people.”

“Guess that’s the extrovert in me,” Noodle says. She sips her tea. She’d never heard of butterfly-pea flower tea until Miku introduced her to a shockingly blue drink. No one keeps her aesthetic on point like Miku. “Is it weird,” Noodle asks, “that people only know you as the 16-year-old version of yourself? That _she’s_ who they worship?”

“Of course,” Miku says. “Looking back on it now that I’m older, it seems like there really is no ethical way to be a child star. But the hologram is at least a degree of separation. It’s a bit like a shield. The fictional Miku I project out there lets me go out and live my life without the media lamenting that I’m not young anymore, that I can’t shed my old self or I’ve shed too much of it, that they don’t like seeing me change. I’m grateful for everything that hologram has given me.”

Noodle opens her mouth to speak, but Miku holds up a finger. “Hold on, I have to get on the call. I’ll be free in a bit, just make yourself comfortable back there.” Miku turns her back to Noodle and greets the computer screen, exchanging professional words and formalities. It all washes over Noodle’s head, but it’s none of her business anyway. She tunes it out, sips her tea, and thinks about what it would be like to be a hologram.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This is essentially Noodle/OC since Miku doesn't really have a canon personality/backstory  
> -Noodle can be a little bit of a disaster lesbian, as a treat  
> -I wrote this before COVID hit so for a moment let's live in a world where Miku goes to Coachella  
> -If you like this, you should check out my original comic, Plan Z https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	3. Meeting the Girlfriend's Dad #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miku finally gets to meet one of Noodle's bandmates under mildly unconventional circumstances.

“This wasn’t part of the original plan for the day,” Miku says, hiding behind a paper fan. The purple lights of the club strobe across her face, her nose and forehead shiny from a long day.

Noodle sips her third vodka cranberry. “We can stay out late, we don’t have anything happening tomorrow.”

“Yeah, loosen up, Blue,” Ace says, drinking Diet Coke since he is the designated driver. He’s always the designated driver since he doesn’t drink. He gets paranoid when offered alcohol, like he’d get in trouble if he accepted.

“That’s not the problem,” Miku replies, trying to keep her eyes averted from the woman on stage twirling around a pole. “This isn’t really my scene.”

“Don’t get your pigtails in a bunch,” Ace says. “No one’s gonna care that you’re here.”

“I don’t really do the pigtails anymore.”

“Pole dancing is like, an art. We’re not creepy old dudes, we’re here to appreciate it in an empowered way,” Noodle says, slipping a dollar into a nearby G-string. “It’s about supporting women.”

“I know, it's all well and good, I just feel weird about being here.”

“It’s not weird, we’re all gay, it’s different,” Ace says.

Miku gingerly sips a blue cocktail. “Ace, does your contract—?”

“My contract says I can’t have sex, but I’m not. I’m just here with friends who wanted to appreciate an Art. I don’t see why I can’t—“ Ace is cut off by the slam of the entrance door.

“You’re in violation of your contract, Ace!”

“Shit!”

Three girls clad in matching leather jackets rush him as he frantically knocks over his seat in his escape. The tall, thin one in pink grabs him by his coat and yanks him back. The muscular, androgynous one in green punches him in the stomach. The short, stocky one in blue grabs his legs as the three drag him to the entrance.

“No! No! I wasn’t doing nothin’ wrong, I swear!”

“Your contract prohibits you from swearing too!”

“Let me go, I won’t come back here again!”

“Take it up with The Network, Ace!”

Upon the door’s close, the buzz resumes as if nothing happened.

“Should someone help him?” Miku asks, getting up from her seat. Noodle takes her arm.

“You don’t wanna get yourself involved with that, that’s between him and The Network.”

They both sit in silence for a moment, the pounding music masking Ace’s screams outside. Noodle stirs her drink stiffly.

“Yeah, the vibe’s dead now,” Noodle says. “We’ll go home.”

“Fine by me,” Miku says softly. “How are we getting back? Surely Ace won’t be in any shape to drive us back.”

“Uber?”

“What if the driver recognizes us? I don’t want it slipping to the media that Miku, or you for that matter, was spotted at the strip club! They’d have a field day with that.”

Noodle sighs. “I’ll call someone.”

* * *

Noodle balances her phone between her shoulder and ear while rifling through her purse with one hand and holding up a battered Ace with the other. Miku holds him up on the opposite side, shuddering in the night air.

“It’s a left on Trenton Avenue and another left past that closed cigar shop, Russ. Pink neon sign… Yeah, we got Ace right here, he can lie down in the back and get a tow… Well, I thought we found a loophole in his contract, I didn’t think it’d be a problem… Yeah, I know that now… In an empowered way! I’m here like in an empowered way!... I’m a grown woman, Russ, and I think I know more about women empowerment than… if you’re at Woolworths, you went too far. Just take the next right… yeah then straight down… Alright. See you in a minute. Bye.”  _ Boop. _

“He’ll be here soon?”

“Yeah. Sorry this is how you get to meet him.”

“I’m just grateful he’s willing to drive out here at 3 A.M. to pick us up.”

Noodle nods. “Russel might be a stick in the mud sometimes, but he’s real giving like that. He’ll go out of his way to do things for you even if he might not be happy about it. You’ll like him. I’m not worried about you two getting along. Guess you’ll meet the other two tomorrow morning.”

“Actually, I think I’ll just have him drop me off at home. I don’t have any overnight stuff with me, and I’m really tired.”

“Oh,” Noodle says.

“Sorry.”

“No that’s ok, tonight wouldn’t be a good night anyway.” Noodle swipes aimlessly through her apps like they could offer a solution to whatever was making the air so cold.

At last, the three of them are illuminated by a pair of car headlights. The car stops and Russel’s broad frame emerges from the driver’s side door.

“Thanks for coming to get us,” Noodle says, handing off Ace to Russel’s larger, more capable arms.

“I wasn’t gonna leave our baby stranded,” he says, helping Ace into the back seat. He straightens up and turns to Miku, holding out his hand. “Miku, right?”

Miku takes his hand and gives him a businesswoman’s handshake. “Pleasure to meet you. Noodle’s told me about you, all good things.”

Russel holds the door open for her as she slides in beside Ace. Noodle gets in the passenger seat, and Russel follows suit behind the wheel. Miku gives him directions—“big gate, blue house up a long driveway,” and they head off.

“ _ World is Mine _ is one people usually know best.”

“Oh yeah,” Russel says. “I might know if I heard it,” knowing full well he wouldn’t. “I’m glad Noodle’s met someone she can,” he churns his hand in a circle like the motion would summon words. “Relate to. She had a pretty stra— unconventional upbringing.”

“I’ve told her stories,” Noodle says.

“Oh dear,” Russel chuckles.

“Like the time you left me and 2D alone for an hour and when you came back, half my head was shaved, the couch was broken, and we had somehow ripped a door off the hinges.”

“I still don’t know how that happened with the strength of a child and 2D, who has the upper body strength of a baby goat,” Russel says.

“It was a team effort,” Noodle says.

“Did you tell her about how, when you were still learning English, Murdoc taught you to respond to ‘ _ Noodle, what are you _ ?’ with—“

“ _ A piece of work, _ ” Noodle says, smiling. “But that hasn’t changed.”

“No,” Miku says. “You’re an angel, you’re just a big personality.”

“I had to get it from somewhere.” Noodle reaches forward and slaps her hand onto Russel’s shoulder.

“Who? Me?”

“Maybe not you, just somewhere.”

“The next right,” Miku says.

“Got it.” Russel pulls up to a gate matching Miku‘s description. Painted turquoise.

“Thanks for the ride, it was nice meeting you,” Miku says as she steps out of the car. She squeezes Noodle’s hand. “Hopefully I’ll get to meet the other two soon.”

“Have a good night,” Russel says, waiting for Miku to unlock her front door and get safely inside before driving away.

The pleasantries of a first meeting dry up to an uncomfortable silence as the car headlights pierce the black empty road. It’s not the same as the silence before something sets off Murdoc when he’s in a mood, or the silence following the slam of 2D’s door, or the silence that sat in the musty cracks of the late Kong Studios. It’s more of a disappointed cloud. No anger, just disappointment, with the dull noise of Ace stirring in the back. Noodle decides to rip off the conversational Band-Aid first.

“Sorry you had to meet her like this,” Noodle says, propping her head against her hand. “And for the way I sounded on the phone.”

“She seems very nice,” Russel says. “I think she’ll be good for you.”

“That maybe she’ll be a good influence on me?” Noodle says, trying not to sound as challenging as she feels.

“No, not like that. That you’ll have someone to talk to and spend time with that’s not,” Russel churns his imaginary word machine once again. “Us.”

Noodle sighs. “I didn’t want it to seem like I don’t like being with you guys—“

“No, no, I understand,” Russel says. “I think it’s good for you to have a woman your age who has an idea of what it’s like growing up—“

“A child star?” Noodle says.

Russel winces.

“I know, you hear those words and it makes you cringe in on yourself, like saying you used to be an altar boy or something. But it’s what I was, it’s what Miku was, and we still both turned out fine.”

Russel nods as he keeps his eyes facing the road. Blank white with no irises or pupils to indicate a direction, it’s hard to tell where his eyes are actually looking, but Noodle is so used to it she can just tell. None of them are really sure how those ghostly eyes work, but if it isn’t broken, there’s no reason to question. A lot of things in this world don’t make sense, but it seems to operate on its own set of rules and that’s fine.

“Noodle,” Russel says, in a way that makes Noodle brace herself for having to face something emotional. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

“From what?”

“I don’t know. The industry. The media. The world. From Him. From—“

“You can’t blame yourself for all that. The world is gonna happen to me no matter what and you did the best you could. It’s not like you didn’t try.”

She looks at Russel to see if her response settled him at all. It hasn’t.

“I’m not always sensible, Russ. But I often am, aren’t I? Even Murdoc says it, that allegedly, I’m the most sensible person in Gorillaz. I had to get that from somewhere.” She takes Russel’s hand as it lays tensely on the center compartment between them. “I know it was dumb to drag Ace and Miku bar-hopping and to a strip club with Ace’s contract and people potentially recognizing us and all that. But I had the good sense to know who to call.” Noodle leans her head back against the seat and smiles at him gingerly. She can feel his hand relax.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Russel says in a husky whisper. The disappointed cloud dissipates into a peaceful quiet the rest of the journey home. If she was still a little kid, Noodle would have pretended to be asleep so Russel would carry her inside. He easily still could, but she figures she’s too old for that. Instead, she offers an arm to help carry Ace up the steps of Kong, where the rest of the Gorillaz family is pretending to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Fuck it Miku at the strip club  
> -Yes the Powerpuff Girls beat the shit out of Ace for violating his contract


	4. Ghost Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle shares some spooky slumber party stories with Miku.

“I used to see ghosts,” Noodle says. She and Miku sit on Miku’s bed like it’s the middle-school sleepover Noodle never had. They’d been giggling and talking for hours, the strip-club debacle days behind them and under the bridge. It’s the kind of late-night talking where the outside world is far away, stories bounce back and forth like it’d been ages since their last visit, and their throats hurt from chattering but the energy is too electric to go to bed.

“Well, you  _ have _ to elaborate on that, now,” Miku says. “What kinda ghosts, like, was it scary?”

“There were different kinds. The studio we used to live in was haunted as shit. Riddled with ghosts, reeked of death, had this constant feeling like someone was pacing around the room above you and outside your door. Murdoc got the place for free as long as he fixed it up, but he said that when he showed up to talk to the owners, they apparently threw the keys at him and ran away screaming.”

Miku raises her eyebrows. Noodle shrugs.

“I mean, he has a tendency to stretch the truth so I don’t know if that’s exactly how it happened, but it was a creepy place for sure, riddled with the remnants of occult rituals, the souls of plague victims, and 2,000 Hell’s Angels, and whatever wretched activity Murdoc performed in private. The place was so huge, it felt empty and desolate even though it seemed like mysterious people were always lurking in its dark corners.”

“God, that gives me chills,” Miku says. “I couldn’t feel safe in a place like that. Were you the only one who could see them?”

“Russel could, he’s always seemed to have a thing with ghosts. 2D says he felt them but didn’t really see anything. Then again, he could never see well anyway. Aside from a few instances with a Specific Specter, Murdoc just didn’t have it. I think he always wished he could, to give his occult-ey persona some clout. I believe ghosts don’t appear to people who want it too badly, that’s why ghost-hunter shows never actually find anything. But I was a kid, and kids seem to be hotspots for it.” Noodle laughs to herself. “Murdoc used to try to use me as like, some sort of ghostly metal detector, taking me around the building and asking if I saw anything. Eventually, I’d pretend to see demons to pull his chain. Once, I pretended to be possessed, and he stopped doing it when he realized I was faking.”

Miku smiles. “Noodle, what are you?”

“ _ A piece of work _ .” Noodle scratches the back of her head, sending her cowlicks in disarray. “They weren’t all bad though. See, Russel was possessed by the ghosts of his dead friends.”

“ _ God. _ ”

“It’s dark, I know, but one of them, in particular, would appear all the time. Russel’s best friend, Del. His presence was so strong, the other guys actually could see him and interact with them. That’s the one Murdoc could see. Except Russel couldn’t, ‘cause he only manifested when Russel was conscious.”

“Did Russel know he was there?”

“Yeah, he said he could feel his presence inside him, but they couldn’t be present at the same time.”

“That sounds sad.” Miku lays back against her fluffy down pillow.

“It is. They seemed to really care about each other. And he became a sort of friend for me too. We could somehow understand each other, even though we didn’t speak the same language at the time. I’d play cards with him on the living room floor when everyone else was asleep. He taught me Poker and gave me a taste for gambling. Knowing he was there when Russel couldn’t made me less afraid of the place.”

“Is he… still possessed?” Miku asks. She picks up one of her many stuffed animals and holds it to her chest.

“He was exorcised while we were on hiatus and I was visiting Osaka to learn about my past, which is a whole other can of worms I’m too tired to get into.”

“That sentence alone is a wild ride from start to finish. You should write a book.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” Noodle says. “No, really, I feel like I’ve been through so many things, they’re all jumbled around, and most of them are so strange I can’t tell what’s real.”

“You could ask your bandmates what they remember,” Miku says.

“Murdoc’s not a very reliable narrator. I don’t think 2D remembers what he had for breakfast.” Noodle lays down beside her, and Miku pulls the duvet over both of them.

“What about Russel?”

Noodle sighs and runs her fingers through Miku’s long hair, free from its tight high ponytail. “I don’t wanna make him think about the past. I don’t think he likes it much.” She turns over on her back and yawns. “I hate to have to cut this conversation short, especially after opening up a whole new crazy chapter, but I’m tired.”

“Yeah, it’s late,” Miku says. She reaches over Noodle to turn out the light, her hair spilling over her shoulders and brushing Noodle’s cheek like a butterfly kiss. The room clicks to darkness, and Miku returns to her position next to Noodle. Miku takes her hand, Noodle’s fingers hardened with guitar-string calluses. “Goodnight.”

Noodle wiggles closer to Miku and breathes a smile into her neck. “Goodnight.”

“Wait, just one more question, sorry,” Miku whispers.

“Shoot.”

“Have you ever seen, like, demons?”

Noodle squeezes her eyes shut tighter and purses her lips the way she does when she’s pushing down a distasteful thought. “Oi,” Noodle mumbles. “Can the long answer wait for another time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I don't really have anything to add here, I have a bunch of chapters centered around other characters and I'm trying to figure out how to integrate those chapters into the main story. Should I start sprinkling in flashbacks, or would they interrupt the story too much?


	5. No Filter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murdoc wants to know when he's going to be introduced to Noodle's new girlfriend, but Noodle has reservations about letting him meet her-- or rather-- have *her* meet *him*.

Nothing beats the feeling of the words “my girlfriend” being fresh on your lips. After a couple of months reading each other’s pages, the heart-skip from getting her texts, the sparks of a conversation going well, finally sprinkling the words “my girlfriend” into one’s vernacular makes everything shinier. Plus, it’s much easier to say than “the girl I’ve been talking to.” It’s nice to know you’ve leveled up from “the girl I’ve been talking to” for someone else. Noodle is still riding the high of Miku introducing her as her girlfriend. Even as she dumps sour milk down the sink, she wears her good mood like a snappy button.

“Sweet Satan, it smells curdled in here!”

“Well,  _ you _ walked in just now, coincidence?” Noodle says, running the water and flipping the disposal on to get rid of all evidence.

“Scooch over love, I have a deposit to drop off,” Murdoc says, clinking six mugs onto the counter at once.

“The cup collection of shame?”

“Not as bad this time, I only had to make one trip.” Murdoc turns on the tea kettle and takes two more mugs from the cabinet. “How do you want your tea?”

“Hmmm, Earl Grey, just sugar.”

Noodle climbs up onto the counter to reach for the Chocolate Shreddies to eat dry, retrieves them, and sits at the kitchen table. It’s much less sitting than perching on the chair, in a squat that would be uncomfortable for anyone else. Ever since she was a kid, it’s just how she’s liked to sit, no matter how many times Russel had asked her to “sit like a lady.” Despite Russel’s attempts to teach her good manners, Murdoc never corrected her. When Murdoc sits down with their tea, he props his boots up on the table, ankles crossed in an even more abhorrent display of manners. Russel had gone grocery shopping, so no one could tell him otherwise. He’d taken 2D with him, figuring some air would do him good after being glued to a video game the past few days.

“Where’d you run off to last night? You missed a smashing game of table tennis,” Murdoc says. “Got really amped. 2D nearly took Russel’s head off when the paddle flew out of his hand. One of us flipped the table. Don’t recall who, though. Heat of the moment. I believe I won.”

“Damn, wish I’d seen it. I was at a sleepover,” Noodle says.

“With your  _ girlfriend _ ? Oh, sorry, I mean ‘the girl you’ve been talking to,” Murdoc says, cheekily.

Noodle feels her face go pink, but she tries to sound casual as she says “yeah, she’s my girlfriend now.”

“How lovely, ‘bout time you found yourself a girlfriend. Almost 30, practically a spinster.”

“Yeah? Speak for yourself,” Noodle says, scrunching her face, pretending to be offended.

“I would if I could, but it’s just so hard to find a nice, Christian girl nowadays,” Murdoc says, turning his inverted Cross necklace right-side-up. “So when am I gonna meet this girl? Make sure she’s Murdoc-approved.”

Noodle quickly shrugs. “At some point, I don’t know, she’s busy a lot. She’s got shows lined up she’s gotta prepare for.” She sips her tea even though it burns the tip of her tongue. “You know.”

“You’ve barely told me anything about her. What’s she like? Is she weird? If she likes you, she’s gotta be barmy.”

“I know I usually like doing things more, I don’t know, unconventional, I mean, I’m used to weird, I was raised on weird.” Noodle says. “But actually, she’s like,  _ executive _ . She has video meetings and she wears ties and she’s really smart. And professional. And I like that about her. We kinda balance each other out.”

“So if you were both praying mantises, who would eat the other’s head?” Murdoc asks.

“Which is what you will  _ not _ be asking her if you meet her,” Noodle says.

“What do you mean, _ if? _ ”

“ _ When _ you meet her.”

“Are you gonna give 2D and Russel the same run-down before she comes over, or am I special?”

Noodle shoves a tentative handful of cereal into her mouth. “Technically, Russel met her already. He had to come pick us up from uh, bar-hopping. Of course, I wasn’t planning on having them meet that way. But yeah. That’s just how it happened to go.”

“When was this?”

“Last week. It was really late, so she didn’t get to stop in for tea.”

“Well, next time she’s free, have her come over. We’re not on a tight schedule, so any time is peachy.” Murdoc says. “I’d rather like to meet this lady of yours, give her the ‘what are your intentions with my daughter’ act. It’ll be ace.”

“I don’t know when that’ll be,” Noodle says, scratching the back of her head. “She’s got a lot going on.”

“Not enough to stop you running over there every other night,” Murdoc says, picking up his tea, then putting it back down as if trying to find a casual action to do with his hands. He looks at Noodle, who keeps her eyes trained in her cereal box like a prize will magically appear inside if she looks hard enough. “Do you not want me to meet her?”

“No, of course not!”

“You don’t want her to meet me.”

“No, nononono, I do!”

“Are you ashamed of me?”

“I’m ashamed that you sometimes pee in the sink, but—“

“I did it twice! It’s not like I’d do that when she’s here! I’m not completely feral.”

“Of course, I know you’re not going to do something like that, it’s just,” Noodle sighs. “We’re a weird group of people, Murdoc. This place is weird. We bring weird with us. When I go to her house, it’s not like ours. It’s spotless. There’s so much light and every room has a proper use and there are no sketchy characters hanging around.”

“I believe that’s Damon’s friends you’re talking about. Be nice. But you have to admit, this place is a far cry from the creep factor of the old Kong,” Murdoc says. “It’s a better home, isn’t it?”

“It is. But still. Our home is different. I finally found someone who has a glimpse of what it’s like growing up the way I did. But I’ve learned that there’s still so much I’ve been through that no one else has.”

“There’s no evil spirits in this place. Sure it’s weird, but it’s not bad.”

“It’s not just the building, it’s—“

“It’s still me,” Murdoc says. As quick to anger as Murdoc is known to be, even at the smallest affront towards him, that signature anger is missing from his voice. Somehow that’s worse.

“I really like her, Murdoc,” Noodle says, her subconscious nagging at her that she’s not going to make it better if she keeps going. “I don’t want her to be scared off.”

Murdoc nods silently, his mouth curled. “Alright,” he says, and Noodle feels like she could sink into the floor and melt all the way down to the basement. He swings his feet off the table and stands up. He picks up his mug. His jagged fingers curl around the scratched letters on the ceramic: “World’s okayest bassist.” A tongue-in-cheek Father’s Day gift from two years ago.

“The invite still stands,” Murdoc says. “Still need to give her Murdoc’s approval.”

Noodle wants to say something as his heels clack away, but it feels too late to backpedal.

“You know I was just pulling your leg about the lesbian thing the other week,” Murdoc says from the doorway, turning back to look at her. “I know what a lesbian is. I’m not that daft.”

“I know you’re not.”

“I don’t have a filter, I know that,” he continues, talking with his hands and sloshing tea from the mug. “My crassness should only make  _ me _ look bad, not you.” He holds up his pinky on his available hand. “I promise I’ll behave.”

Noodle holds up her own pinky from across the room. “I believe you.”

They both hook their pinkies in the air between them, a remnant of an old ritual—usually reserved for promising not to tell Russel when Murdoc would let Noodle stay up far past her bedtime to watch  _ Kill Bill _ . It’s a rather childish ritual now, so Murdoc only breaks it out when he means it. As he disappears from the doorway, Noodle sighs to herself again, opens her texts, and types with true millennial swiftness:  _ When’s the next time you’re free to come over? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I have several more Murdoc-centric chapters written and I don't know if I want to include them in this story or post them in a separate series.  
> -I have a one-shot prepared for Noodle's birthday :)  
> -Read Plan Z while you're at it https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	6. For Kicks and Giggles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle hasn't shared much about Murdoc, and Miku wonders why. Ace pries for answers about Murdoc's mystique.

“I had this pillowcase, and I would bring it to 2D when I wanted to be jostled around, ‘cuz you know, when you’re a kid you love to be jostled,” Noodle says, gesturing with her hands as she tells her stories to Miku and Ace, sitting in Miku’s courtyard. “And I’d get in the pillowcase—“

“You fit in a pillowcase?” Ace interrupts. “How old were you?”

“Ten, I was a wee kid,” Noodle says. “So I’d be in the pillowcase, and 2D would swing the pillowcase around and I had a grand old time. He’d get tired pretty quick but I would pester him almost every day to do it. I’d ask Murdoc to do it when 2D got too wiped out, but he said Russel would kill him on sight. Russel never did it fast enough for my liking cuz he was afraid I’d get hurt.”

“That’s a very sibling thing to do. I remember me and my gang would rough each other up every day for fun,” Ace says. “Kids are built different, they love falling.”

Miku laughs and props her legs across Noodle’s, sitting horizontally on their shared bench. “I remember doing that stuff as a kid but I can’t imagine being that rough now. I think I’d put myself out of commission trying a cartwheel.”

“Ace, see if you can do a cartwheel,” Noodle says, pointing to a flat space among the hydrangea bushes.

“You got jokes!” Ace says. “No way, José!  _ You _ do one, you’re the one who still does shit like that!”

“I can’t, I’m trapped,” Noodle says, indicating to Miku’s legs across her lap. “Go on, you go first!”

Ace dramatically sighs as he gets up, shaking his head as he takes position in the clearing. “You’re ‘waitin for my downfall is what you’re ‘doin.” He stretches his hands out in front of him and makes a few jerky false-starts with his feet still firmly on the grass. “I don’t even know what position you start with! What am I ‘doin this for? I ain’t never done a cartwheel in my life!”

“You put your hands above your head and lean to the side, then put your weight on one hand, then the other, and you land on your feet,” Miku says.

“What do I look like, a circus freak?”

“Yes,” Noodle and Miku say in unison, laughing.

“I’m only ‘doin it once! I’m not here for your entertainment!” Ace says. He puts his arms up, makes a few more false starts, and finally makes his attempt as the girls cheer him on. His cartwheel is more of a flat tire as he opts to scrunch in his knees and land on his back, his feet barely leaving the ground. Noodle and Miku applaud him anyway.

“Absolutely stunning! Tens across the board!” Miku cheers.

“Eat your heart out, Simone Biles!” Noodle whoops.

Ace scrambles to his feet, dusts himself off, and retrieves his hat from the grass. “I landed and there was a huge weird bug next to me!”

“You were the one invading his personal space,” Noodle says.

Ace returns to his garden chair, fidgeting and slapping at invisible bugs on his pants.

“You have all these stories about 2D and Murdoc always seems to show up but you never share stories about him,” Miku says. “What’s he like? I’m gonna be meeting him this weekend, I’d like to be prepared.”

“That’s cuz it’s a whole other barrel of monkeys,” Noodle says. “You’ll hear aaaaall those stories from him, believe me, he’ll talk your ear off the whole night.”

“You make him sound so enigmatic,” Miku says. 

“He’s a piece of work, I’ll tell ya,” Ace says. “I played bass on their last album while he was taking a vacation in the clink.”

Noodle beans an empty water bottle off Ace’s head. Miku raises her eyebrows. “Jail?”

“For petty shit. He likes raising hell and getting himself into trouble,” Noodle says. “He likes attention. To him, all publicity is good publicity. But he’s nothing to worry about.”

“2D had a lot to say about him while I was ‘workin on that album,” Ace says.

“What does that mean?” Miku asks.

“We have a long, complicated history as a band,” Noodle says, jumping in before Ace could open his yap again. “I was dropped into the lives of three dysfunctional weirdos who had to get their shit together for me. Our relationship is...complicated. That makes it sound bad but everything is better now than it ever was before.”

“He just had a mean streak in him,” Ace says, and Noodle shoots him a  _ would you butt out?  _ look. “...is what I heard.”

“He wasn’t mean to  _ you _ , was he?” Miku asks.

“That’s the complicated part,” Noodle says. “He had a temper, that’s for sure. Probably partially where I get  _ my _ short fuse. He’d blow up at everyone if they crossed him, but he tried to keep his cool with me. You know, ‘cuz I was a just little girl, and he knew Russel wouldn’t stand for it. But it was more than that. I think he saw me like I was his own daughter. Russel might have taken up the role as the responsible guardian, but he was still practically a kid when I first showed up, only two years older than 2D. Murdoc and I had something in common: neither of us had a family outside the band.” Once she starts talking, Noodle can’t help but let the words keep rolling. Miku watches attentively as she speaks, running her hands through Noodle’s hair gently. Even Ace sits and listens politely. Noodle continues:

“He’s not the kind of guy to say ‘I love you’ like the rest of us do. I think it’s always been foreign to him to acknowledge it. But he’d say it by bringing me back a chocolate bar whenever he bought himself cigarettes, letting me stay up to watch movies Russel definitely wouldn’t let me watch, playing me his beloved records, or temporarily dropping his dark, tough image to play make-believe with me.” Noodle fiddles with her hands, tearing at her nails. She hadn’t even realized she’d been doing it. “He liked to spoil me. And even through the roughest patches, he still liked me best. The problem was, he didn’t extend that courtesy to everyone, especially 2D. He’s trying his best now, making an effort to treat him better— and he is, but it’s something I’ve had a hard time with for the last 20 years. I wouldn’t say he was a great dad, but he cared about me. I just don’t know how to reconcile his love for me with the terrible things he’s done to other people, people  _ I  _ love.”

“That’s completely understandable,” Miku says, with a voice like a cat walking across a piano. “I think it’s perfectly valid to hold both of those feelings at the same time, and it’s hard to have them co-exist. I’m sure a lot of people can relate to that.”

“Has he ever gotten angry at you?” Ace asks.

“C’mon, Ace,” Miku says.

“No, it’s fine,” Noodle says. “Like I said, he’s far from perfect and he has a major temper. He made an agreement with Russel that he’d never hit me, curse at me, or raise his voice at me. He didn’t want to be like his dad. And for the most part he kept his word. But one time I knocked his bass over by accident when we were in the studio, and he shouted at me, something along the lines of ‘watch where you’re fucking going.’ That was the only time he ever directed his anger at me like that, and I could tell he felt bad after, because he was nervous around me for the next few days. I think it gave him a glimpse of what he was capable of.”

“Did it make  _ you _ any more scared of him?” Ace asks. Since he only had a taste of what it’s like to be part of the band’s dynamic, he can’t help but pry further.

Noodle pauses, thinking about her answer as she looks down at her nails, torn to stubs. “Actually. It filled me with temptation to do it again. I didn’t understand much, but I saw how he treated 2D. And part of me wanted to challenge him. Like,  _ I know how you really are, you old bastard, let’s see if you’ll show it to me _ . Another part of me just liked the sound it made when it hit the floor. The adrenaline of watching something priceless start to tip over, followed by the crescendo of a terrible  _ crash _ . It’s not often you get to create catastrophe, even on just a small scale.” Noodle feels a strange smirk creep into her cheeks. “I guess I see why he does it.”

Miku tucks an unruly lock of hair behind Noodle’s ear, but it bounces back out of place. She wonders who cuts her hair, considers recommending her own stylist. “If you’re as alike as you say you are I’m sure we’ll get along swimmingly,” Miku says.

Noodle presses her lips together until they disappear. “Let’s hope it’s a good thing.”

Miku opens her mouth to respond, but is cut off by Ace flailing at the air and falling to the ground.

“Something buzzed near my head!” He cries.

“He heard you were picking on his little brother,” Noodle says. Miku laughs. Noodle smiles. She likes making Miku laugh— like taking a peek through her secure, robotic exterior at the butterflies inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -If you can't afford therapy, writing fanfiction will do fine  
> -I have a job now and I'm still working on my comic, but hopefully I'll still be posting every Friday  
> -If you haven't seen them on Tumblr, I post full illustrations that go with each chapter on my art blog, poltergeistsoup https://poltergeistsoup.tumblr.com/search/gorillaz+fanfiction  
> -Plugging my comic again, read Plan Z: https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	7. Meeting the Girlfriend’s Dad 2: The Reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moment of truth: Miku finally meets the rest of the band.

Darth Vader is Luke’s father, Soylent Green is people, the Planet of the Apes was Earth the whole time-- no plot twist rivals what’s transpired in Kong Studios. Noodle’s not sure which is more surprising: Miku laughing at Murdoc’s jokes or Murdoc behaving himself. He hasn’t made any comments whatsoever about his bowel movements, murder or other crime, his dick (nor anyone else’s), or even politics (though it’s unlikely they’d actually disagree on much). She didn’t believe Murdoc would break his promise, but she’s thankful he kept it.

“I’m a good driver! I’m just a good driver at a higher speed than the rest of you!” Murdoc says, sloshing his drink since he can’t keep his hands still when he talks.

“What the hell do you mean,  _ good driver _ ?” Russel says.

“I’ve never hit anything!” Murdoc lies, meeting eyes with 2D, who squints doubtfully. “Recently.” He redirects the attention to Noodle seated across from him with a dramatic point of his trigger finger. “But  _ Noodle _ !”

“Me? You’re the one who taught me!” Noodle retorts. “Besides, I’ve  _ actually _ never hit anything.”

“I’ve even seen Murdoc grab the  _ oh sweet Jesus _ handle when you’re behind the wheel,” Ace says, to which Noodle elbows him.

“Wait,  _ I _ taught you to drive,” Russel says.

Miku’s never driven with Noodle, so she sips her drink with amusement as the debate unfolds over the dinner Russel and Noodle had prepared. 2D, as she’d been told, helped peel the potatoes.

“Oh yeah, I didn’t tell you ‘cos I knew you’d tell me not to,” Murdoc says. “I started showing her when she was about twelve.”

“You’d better tell me ‘showing’ didn’t mean letting her behind the wheel,” Russel says, holding his head-- not in shock and horror, more so exasperation. This is clearly an in-character revelation. Miku can’t remember the last time she’d been a part of dinner conversation this entertaining.

“I learned to drive by the time  _ I _ was twelve, my dad needed a designated driver after my brother got his license revoked,” Murdoc says casually. “It’s an important skill to heave, yeah?”

“It was only in parking lots, we never drove on roads!’ Noodle adds.

Russel closes his eyes and waves his hand. “What am I gonna do, ground you?”

“You could still ground Murdoc,” 2D says. He’s been alert this evening. He has to be attentive for opportunities to poke fun at Murdoc. He has no choice but to take the piss with Noodle’s new girlfriend in attendance.

“Oi, Miku, we might have an opening for a new blue-haired singer,” Murdoc says. “Does that sound like a position you’d be interested in?”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if Noodle started a band with me and Miku and called it like,  _ Orangutanz  _ or ‘somethin?” Ace chimes in. “Different band, but there’s still a blue-haired singer and a green bassist.”

“An absolute riot,” Murdoc says through tense lips, swirling his wine threateningly.

“Wot about Russel?” 2D says.

“You could see if Winnie the Pooh is available,” Murdoc says.

“Winnie the Pooh doesn’t wear pants,” Russel says, rolling his eyes as if it were an obvious point of contention.

“If he’s sitting behind the drums, what’s it matter?” Miku says, making Russel laugh.

“Would you guys be mad if I just stopped wearing pants on stage, since I’m hidden behind the drums?” He jokes.

“Well if you get to be pantsless, it’s only fair that I am too,” Murdoc says.

“ _ You’ve already done that _ ,” the band jeers in unison.

“This is so much fun, I wish I was in the band,” Miku says, giggling.

“Me too,” Ace says.

“It’s settled, Miku’s in the band and we’re pussy-out on stage from now on!” Murdoc says, raising his glass in a toast that only Ace reciprocates. Murdoc recoils his arm and sips his wine contemptuously.

Noodle cringes into herself, ready to collapse into a black hole, but Miku, against all odds, laughs. A reflex, perhaps, in response to something shocking and filthy. And yet, she yes-ands him with grace:

“Oh, you couldn’t find me on stage with pants  _ on _ ,” Miku says. “I have such bad stage fright. That’s the hologram’s job.”

“Oh yeah, that hologram deal, that’s a good idea, innit?” Murdoc says. “Would’ve been great for those occasions I found myself a tad hungover.”

“I’m in it for the production. I love the sampling and putting things together, rearranging, figuring out the notes that complement each other perfectly,” Miku continues. “It’s a lot of pressure to perform the polished thing live with choreography and controlling your face so you don’t make weird expressions. The experimenting is the fun part.”

2D perks up. He’s always preferred the experimenting to the performing too. Now that they’re talking about the music, the circuits in his brain are sparking with energy.

“Miku should jam wit us!” He says, slapping Russel’s arm in excitement with his large, bony hands.

“If she’d like, she’s more than welcome to,” Russel says.

“I’d love to,” Miku says, smiling, and laces her fingers with Noodle’s.

“Great, so who’s doing dishes?” Murdoc says, chugging the last of his wine.

* * *

“Sorry about him,” Noodle says, handing a plate to Miku to dry. The rest of the band had gone to the studio to set up, leaving Ace, Noodle, and Miku. Russel offered to stay and help, that Miku should go ahead and join the others, but she insisted. She takes the plate and gingerly dries it before passing it to Ace to put away.

“About what?” Miku asks.

“You know,” Noodle says, making circles with her soapy hands. “ _ Pussy-out _ .”

“It was funny! What are you apologizing for?”

“I don’t know, he just says things that are so out-of-pocket sometimes, and I’m used to it, but I didn’t know if you’d like, I don’t know…”

“Be offended?” Miku says, raising her eyebrows. “Do I come across as someone who clutches her pearls?”

“You act like yous never  _ did it _ before,” Ace says.

Noodle scrunches her face at him before turning back to Miku with another plate. “I don’t know. I was just really nervous leading up to this. I guess I built it up to be a really big deal in my head.”

“How badly does it normally go?” Miku asks.

Noodle tries to shrug her sleeve back up as it’s begun to slide down her forearm, and Miku rolls it back up for her. “I’ve never really brought anyone over before. I’m either spending my time with the band, or I’m off doing my own thing. This is kind of the first time I’ve made time to have my own friends. That I’ve stuck around for.”

Miku gives her an understanding smile. “Well, you got the hard part over with. It can only get better from here.” She leans in and gives Noodle a peck on the cheek. “And you don’t have to worry that I’m gonna burst into flames if someone says the fuck word in front of me.”

“Thanks,” Noodle says. She shuts the water off and dries her hands before giving Miku a hug. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Ace breaks up the fuzzy moment by cracking a dish towel at Noodle’s butt. “Geez, never been kissed, never had a slumber party, can’t drive, what’ve you been doing this whole time?”

“I’ve been making culturally iconic albums and revolutionizing the music industry, thank you very much,” Noodle says, snatching the towel and snapping him back. “What about you? Shoplifting? Jerking off?”

“How come you learned to drive when you were twelve but it took you almost ten years to get your license and you  _ still _ suck at it?” Ace asks.

Noodle pauses. Miku can’t tell if she’s embarrassed, or if something bothered her in a different way. She opens her mouth to come to her defense regardless, but Noodle retorts with a flat “I was busy. Sometimes things come up.”

“I mean, I didn’t get mine until I was eighteen, it’s not that crazy,” Miku adds. She holds Noodle’s hand. “Come on, let’s go jam.” She gently turns Noodle’s face and plants a kiss on her lips.

“What about me?” Ace says, leaning in and puckering. Noodle swats the top of his head.

“You can ask 2D for one when we get to the studio.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Okay at this point I don't think I'm putting Katsu in the story, sorry Katsu stans  
> -I finally figured out what exactly I'm doing with the rest of the story and some of my favorite chapters I've written are coming up, so get hype!!  
> -Murdoc really said "I'm not a regular dad, I'm a cool dad, I let my 12-year-old take the wheel."  
> -As usual, read Plan Z https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz --one chapter read=one handful of oats for 2D


	8. Noodle's Inferno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback to the beginnings of Phase 3: Noodle surfacing from her sabbatical in Hell.

There’s always a bit of a gamble drilling for Texas Gold. Sometimes you gotta dig deeper than initially planned. Sometimes the ground runs dry. Sometimes you gotta break down a layer of particularly pesky rock. On a normal day, you either strike oil, or you go to bed and keep drilling another day. Sure, hidden treasures might pop up once in a while: long-petrified longhorn bones or rusty mufflers mysteriously parted from their original cars. Almost never, however, does one stumble upon an arm, waving about from the loosened dirt.

“Hold it! There’s something coming out of the ground!”

“Oil, Boss?”

“No, come help me dig it out!”

With a chain of greasy, dirt-caked workers shoveling away and a firm yank on the protruding arm, Noodle feels the first beam of sun on her bruised and bloodied face. She cringes at the light, gasping and spitting dirt as the men stand slack-jawed around her.

“Christ almighty,” someone mutters.

“You alright, ‘darlin?” The Boss asks.

“What the hell happened to you?”

Noodle shields her eyes with her filthy hands, her fingernails eviscerated. At the time of her descent almost four years ago, they had glitter nail polish on them. The sun beats down on her dark, matted hair, unbearably hot to most people, but welcomingly preferable for her case. It’s so unfamiliar to not be running from something. She could lie on the dead, orange ground forever, but she still has matters to attend to. Now that she’s done running  _ from _ , it’s time to start running  _ to _ . Wiping her mouth on the remnants of her striped sleeve, she sits up, squinting at the men around her as their silhouettes sharpen into focus. “This is embarrassing,” she says. One thing she made damn sure to hold onto all this time: her wit.

“Where the hell did you come from?” One of the men asks, handing her his canteen, which she accepts and drinks from with gusto.

“Essex,” she says, handing him back the empty canteen. “Where am I?”

“ _ Amarilla _ , Texas, ma’am.”

“What’s the date?”

“August 27th.”

“What year?” Noodle asks.

“Uh, 2009. Ma’am, should we take you to a hospital?”

“I don’t think I have insurance,” she says, accepting another canteen. “I’m looking for someone. Have any of you heard anything about a man named Murdoc Niccals?”

The workers shake their heads. The Boss offers her a rag to wipe her face. “Is he the son of a bitch who did this to you?”

“Inadvertently, yes.” Noodle smears the dirt around her face and fruitlessly rubs at her cracked hands.

“What’s your name, Miss?”

“Noodle.”

“Is this some kinda joke?” One of the workers says. Noodle turns her head to look at him.

“Are you a spiritual man at all?”

“Why?”

“If I told you I spent the last three years making my way through Hell, would you believe me?”

“By the looks of you, I might.”

“Miss, whatever the story is, we just pulled you out of the ground in the middle of nowhere, we gotta take you to a hospital.”

“I’ll be fine. I just gotta get cleaned up,” Noodle says. What’s the closest place to get something to eat? I’m a vegetarian but right now, I’m not picky.”

“One of us’ll take you into town, but at some point, someone with a medical degree gotta confirm you’re okay,” The Boss says.

“Fair enough,” Noodle says.

“And who’s Murdoc Niccals?”

Noodle scrunches her face and looks out into the horizon. The air between the endless ground and infinite blue sky wobbles and warps like a glitch in the matrix. Stretching into the distance, sullying the land, oil pumps like praying mantises dip and rise, dip and rise, dip and rise. Noodle curls her lip. “A dead man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -We getting into backstory chapters now babey! Yeah!  
> -I don't know how fracking works, so sorry to any frackers reading if I'm completely off the mark in terms of accuracy. Actually no, I'm not sorry to frackers. Big Oil companies should be ashamed of themselves  
> -You should check out the art that goes with this chapter too cuz it slaps https://poltergeistsoup.tumblr.com/search/gorillaz+fanfiction  
> -Thank you to anyone who's read Plan Z as well! It means a lot to hear feedback on my work https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	9. Gotta Get Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle is invited to go on tour with Miku for a month, which provokes Murdoc to reflect on how much time the band has spent apart over the years.

“She asked me if I wanted to come with her on tour next month,” Noodle says, turning the silvery knobs on her guitar until she finds the right sound. She feels her face flushing red-hot like she’s relaying being asked to a middle school dance. She’s never been asked to a middle school dance before, how could she help it when the feeling is so novel?

“Wot’d you say?” 2D asks. He tap-tap-taps aimlessly at Russel’s drums until the Big Man shoos him away and takes his place.

“That I’d love to, but that I’d tell you guys about it first.”

“Album’s just about wrapped up, and you’re your own woman, you don’t need our permission,” Russel says, inspecting his drum kit on the off chance 2D might’ve done internal damage just by playing it. “You wouldn’t be overworking yourself?”

“I wouldn’t be playing, just sticking around for company. Traveling for the sake of it for once.”

“We’re so rough on you, you gotta get away from us,” Murdoc says. He takes a pause on tuning his to flick 2D’s ear. “You’re driving the girl up the wall, Stuart.”

2D rubs his ear and blinks in confusion. “I’m wot?”

“Yeah, I need a break from working in the sweatshop making all those Gorillaz tee shirts,” Noodle says.

“You know, I started this band just for the sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Then you came along and there had to be all these ‘rules’ put in place for backstage activities, leaving just the rock and roll. Which turned out to be hard work. And with those pesky child labor laws too. Threw a real monkey wrench into my Kieth Richards vision of stardom.”

“Damn, sorry to make you miss out on all the sex and drugs,” Noodle says, matching Murdoc’s dripping sarcasm. “On the bright side, being so chaste and sober has made you the accomplished astrophysicist you are today.” She looks up from her guitar. “You lit the wrong end.”

Murdoc gags on the plasticy smoke he’s inhaled from his backward cigarette. “See that now, love. Thanks for the heads-up.” He grinds it into an ashtray, one with a pinup girl on the inside, ashes smashed into her cheeky face.

“This studio’s freshly painted,” Russel says. “If we chain smoke in here like we did the old one, the walls are gonna age like milk.”

“Breaking it in,” Murdoc rasps. “Who’s chaperoning you,  _ Diablito _ ?”

“Miku’ll make sure I don’t get peer pressured into doing coke. As if I’ve never traveled alone before. It’s been a hot minute since my last sabbatical.”

“But we’ll miss you, Miss Lady,” 2D says. He tousles Noodle’s hair.

“You’ll get over it.”

“Do you have to talk to her like that, Muds?” Russel huffs.

“She knows I’m taking the piss,” Murdoc says.

“He’s breaking my heart, Russ, truly.” Noodle slips her guitar strap over her head and holds out her hand for 2D to help her up. “Are you chuckleheads ready to play or what?”

* * *

The session was productive, got some cool sounds, pieced together some unfinished scraps, made satisfactory last-minute changes, all before 2D’s impending migraine took over at a good stopping place. It’s not what’s keeping Murdoc awake. Though this Winnebago doesn’t quite match the dank familiarity of his old one, he’s been sleeping in it just fine. The air conditioning is cranked unbearably high despite the encroaching autumn nights, the way he likes it. The problem is coming from the inside. So what if Noodle’s gone for a month? The album’s nearly finished, Miku would take good care of her, and she’s right: Travelling a long way for a long time comes as naturally to Noodle as a trip to the grocery store, and often under less than savory circumstances. It’ll be fine. It’s fine. What is there to be worried about? Is he worried? It’s not something even worth a second thought. So why do the thoughts keep coming?

Murdoc turns over and reaches below for the mini-fridge. He gropes around in the dark until his fingers wrap around the neck of the bottle he’s looking for. He holds it up to the vague light coming through the slats in the blinds, squints at its contents, jostles the liquid inside. Nearly empty. It’ll do for now. He sits up, shutting the fridge door with his foot, and knocks back the bottle. The rum burns coolly. 

That girl’s been through Hell and back, she doesn’t need him there. He doesn’t have to interject with something outrageous when some knobhead from the press asks an invasive question anymore, she can crack back with wit rivaling his own. No need to fight some sleazy bigwig on her behalf should problems arise. A month is nothing. The band’s spent just as much time apart as they have together. As he finishes off the bottle and tosses it aside to an overflowing bin, he wonders if maybe that’s the problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Posting a bit late today cuz I was busy  
> -Strange Timez is p good, it's got jams. Very disgruntled that my almanac is delayed for a month even though I ordered it 5 months ago. Now it's gonna be spoiled online before I can be disappointed in it on my own terms  
> -Today I encountered a charismatic, old, gay man working at the Mac counter who could have sold me the shoes off my feet. This doesn't have anything to do with the story, I just think about him and I want him to be my grandpa  
> -I will have a Noodle birthday one-shot next Saturday in addition to the next chapter!  
> -Anyway here's Plan Z as always, love u <3 https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	10. The Fool Jingles Miserably Back to his Winnebago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murdoc and 2D find their paths cross in the kitchen late at night, or early in the morning, and they can't help but notice how different things are now than they were 20 years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for 2Doc, kinda-- I don't like them as a ship, but I find their dynamic fun and interesting to explore. This isn't meant to be a romantic/ship chapter, it's meant to focus on 2D's sense of self worth and liberation from Murdoc's control. So the themes are present, but they're gonna be pretty much isolated to this chapter, so if you really don't want it anywhere near you, you can skip this chapter and wait for next week's upload. Or for the Noodle one-shot I'm posting tomorrow. Either way, I won't be offended <3

It is not uncommon for 2D to wake up at 5 in the morning or for Murdoc to go to bed at 5 in the morning. It is not uncommon for them to have the English-bred instinct to make a cup of tea at this hour either. It is more uncommon, however, for their paths to cross in the expanse of Kong Studios, and even more uncommon that they’d acknowledge each other if such an event occurred.

“You’re up early,” 2D says, unsure of what beckoned him to start a conversation. There was a time where 2D dreaded to meet Murdoc’s red eye, where he crept around the house like the whole place was made of crepé paper and flinched if he heard anyone else there. But the air is different now. He reaches into the top cupboard for the PG Tips and plucks one tea bag for himself.

“Who do you think I am? Up early. I’m off to bed.” Murdoc says. He takes a mug from the dish drainer and places it on the counter, but stops the action at that, as if he’s waiting for 2D to fetch a tea bag for him as well. 2D doesn’t. 

“I accidentally took my ‘sleepin pill after dinner instead of my other one, so now I s’pose I’m up for the day.”

“What’s stoppin’ you from ‘takin another? It’s not like we have anything to do tomorrow. Today, rather,” Murdoc says. He hoists himself onto the counter to reach for his own tea bag, a humiliating ordeal he knows 2D must be taking some schadenfreude in.

“I’m on a set schedule for my pills now. It might’ve been easier to make the headaches go away just by ‘takin more pills before, but I fink I like it much better ‘bein able to stay awake frough the day.” 2D explains, taking some schadenfreude in making Murdoc go through the humiliating ordeal of crouching on the counter to reach his tea.

“That’s good for you, innit,” Murdoc says. He lowers himself off the counter, cautious of his old man ankles and knees, as 2D turns the kettle on.

“Yeah, it is.” 2D scratches at his oily blue hair as he stares into the red ring on the stove. Murdoc’s voice from 20 years ago echoes in the back of his mind:  _ just take another if it hurts ya so bad, we got an album to record _ . “So you’re off to bed?”

“I was really only going out of obligation, or some feeble attempt really. I’m supposed to be tired ‘cus I haven’t slept in 36 hours, but I’m just not. You don’t suppose I can’t have one of those pills?”

2D shakes his head. “I’ve got a set number in there ‘fore I get my next prescription.”

“That’s fair, that’s fair,” Murdoc says, burying his tea bag in a disgraceful amount of sugar. “Just figured it was worth ‘askin.”

Both of them wait by the tea kettle as if they’re waiting for it to participate, to interject in the conversation with its whistle. It hums idly.

“Oi Murdoc, I know it’s a bit early, or rather late for you, for tough questions,” 2D says.

“Sweet Satan,” Murdoc grumbles.

“If you don’t want to, it's alright.”

“We’re already here, go ahead.”

“What made you want me in the band?”

Murdoc doesn’t answer.  _ It seems about 20 years too late for that kind of a question, innit? _ He thinks to himself. He doesn’t know how to give a proper answer, so he says aloud “It seems about 20 years too late for that kind of a question, innit?”

“I s’pose it is, but I wanna know. What made you want me in the band?”

“Well,” Murdoc starts. “When I saw you stand up and turn around that second time you got your eye smashed in, I thought  _ wow, the girls would go nuts for him. Tall, lithe, blue haired _ —“

“I know that part. You’ve said that part a million times. That’s the answer you give in all the interviews, every time you tell the story of how we met.” 2D says.

“Well of course, what, you want a different story? You want me to spin you a different yarn?” Murdoc sneers.

“You always say it’s because girls would go nuts for me, but every time they do and I get the chance to talk to ‘em, you…” 2D squints into the air in front of him like he’s trying to conjure the words he’s looking for. “You cockblock me.”

“Cockblock! You did a good enough job for yourself spreading your seed around, collecting illegitimate children like they’re Poke-man cards!”

“You know what I mean! Every girl you ever caught me flirting with, you’d wedge yourself in and sabotage it.”

“When have I ever-“ Murdoc sputters, his crooked nose throbbing with the memory of what Russell did to it when he caught him in the bathroom with Paula.

“What  _ girls _ do you mean, anyway?” 2D asks, in a lawyer sort of way, like he has an answer he’s waiting to hear.

“Girls who like the blue hair, greasy, junkie look! Alternative girls, with daddy issues!”

“One alternative _man_ with daddy issues,” 2D mutters. Silence hangs between them like a gutted deer. It seems both of them are taken aback by it. In a different time, neither could have imagined such a response escaping 2D’s missing front teeth. Only the wail of the kettle breaks the silence. 2D removes it from the heat and pours for both of their cups.

“Sorry,” He says, a more fitting word for 2D. He tenses in preparation for a slap or something, but it doesn’t come.

“What made you figure that out?” Murdoc says in a gravelly whisper.

“I fink I always sorta knew,” 2D says, proceeding with caution. “You coulda just kicked me out or replaced me if you didn’t want me around. You say it’s because Russell or Noodle’d be upset, but you always had the final say. You’ve always liked me, in your own twisted way.”

Murdoc’s face had drained from its usual green to a more sickly one, the shade of green when he’d had too much rum on no food. “I do,” he says, like the words have to claw their way out. He stands nailed to his spot against the counter as 2D takes his mug to the kitchen table. Murdoc keeps his back to him, like something terrible would be standing there if he dares to look.

“It seems a bit late to say it out loud, innit?” 2D says. He can’t help but push his luck a little now, with this newfound boldness.

“I thought that if I never admitted it, I’d never have to face it. I thought if I berated you, slapped you around, belittled you,” Murdoc says. “I don’t know. You’d leave first and I would have to let it go. Or I thought maybe it’d go away if I denied it enough.”

“You never wanted me to leave. You always wanted me in your sight.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well it clearly didn’t do me any good cos you’d just find me and kidnap me again and make me record another album with you,” 2D says. “But admittedly, I did loik you at first. When I thought you’d saved my loif. I wanted to be just loik you. I tried to match your pace with the ‘drinkin, drugs, iresponsible sex, until it did me no good.”

“I...don’t feel good about it,” Murdoc says. He creakily reaches for his cup of tea. “You’d have been better off in another life where we’d never met.”

2D silently agrees.

“I’ve done wrong by a lot of people, Faceache,” Murdoc says, then reconsiders: “Stu. 2D. But I wanna be different. I’ve really done my hardest ‘tryin. I haven’t been a good influence for Noodle at all. I can’t undo it, but I can try to show her I’m sorry.” He turns his head to look at 2D, but his rusty neck stops him at 45 degrees. “Do you think...we could start over. And try?”

2D’s brain stumbles across the words and rolls them over and over again, trying to take them in and interpret them. His lack of a response makes Murdoc antsy. “I loik that we’re friendly now.” He begins. “I fink you've changed, and I rather respect you for it.” He sees Murdoc’s shoulders relax. “But,” 2D continues. “That doesn’t undo the other 19 years of Hell you put me frough. ‘Callin me names, ‘hittin me, makin me feel worth noffin, ‘kidnappin me, all that. I want us to be friendly-loik. But ‘anythin more, that can't happen.”

“Lad, I promise-” Murdoc steps toward the kitchen table like he’s traversing a cavern between them.

“I loiked you once and you weren’t nice to me. This in’t primary school where you’re mean to someone when you loik-loik ‘em.” 2D gets back up, meeting him halfway.

“What do you want me to do to make it up to you?” Murdoc asks, practically craning his neck to look up at 2D, and he feels as small as his true stature.

“I have enough self-respect now to say ‘noffin.’” 2D says. “But I don’t want you to fink that means we have to give up ‘bein civil. I’m glad we can truly be friends now.” 2D puts a hand on Murdoc’s raisined bicep, testing the waters. “I don’t want to lose that.”

Murdoc nods solemnly, but won’t meet the vague inkinesss of 2D’s eyes. 2D opens his arms for a hug: a rare, high-risk move. He wraps his string bean arms around Murdoc, and he hesitantly reciprocates. The hug feels like rigor mortis, yet welcome nonetheless. At once, Murdoc wants to yank himself away like an unaware hand from a stovetop and also stay there forever. Unfortunately, it comes to an inevitable end. “I appreciate you tryina to be better,” 2D says as he releases him, picking up his mug. Murdoc watches him disappear through the doorway.

Murdoc stares into the winedark ring of his undrunk tea, his only companion in the ungodly hour. It stares back at him with the same empty blackness as one of 2D’s defunct eyes. He reaches into a cabinet and summons a liquor bottle, the open lip gummy from handling, and makes his way down to the garage and the solace of his Winnebago. His tea sits alone on the table, left to grow cold until its eventual discovery and subsequent journey down the kitchen sink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This is my favorite chapter I've written tbh I hope y'all like it  
> -Noodle birthday one-shot tomorrow  
> -Anyway here's Plan Z, and I'll be hosting a "draw this in your style" raffle soon to promote the last chapter of volume 1 coming out (hopefully) soon! https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	11. Family Reunion Beach Vacation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You will always return to the Plastic Beach.

Murdoc’s nose must be damned as an eternal target for blunt force. This is what he thinks, though not in such eloquent or tangible phrasing, as the butt of Noodle’s empty Tommy gun meets his gaunt face the moment she steps foot on Plastic Beach.

“You son of a bitch! Five years! You left me down there! Where were you?”

Murdoc flails his legs on the ground in an attempt to back away from the onslaught of blows. He shields his face with one arm and grasps at the air with the other. “Noodle, wait, listen!”

“You miserable asshole, was it so hard for you to come up with any feelings for anyone but yourself? Was it so hard to care enough about me to even try looking?”

“If you’ll let me explain—“ Murdoc’s palm finally makes contact with the black metal of the gun and he rips it from Noodle’s scraped hands. He tosses it aside, but that doesn’t stop her from kicking him instead. Fortunately for him, her bare foot doesn’t make the same solid connection with his chronically aching bones like the gun did. He struggles to his feet and holds up his hands in surrender.

“Noodle, Noodle,” He says over her labored breathing. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what? Russell’s been looking for me this whole time. Maybe it took him five years, and maybe he couldn’t save me, but he tried. He’s always tried.” Noodle holds onto a palm tree to steady her tired body. “Go ahead. Let’s hear it. I’ve been dying to.”

“I did look for you. I really did,” Murdoc says. His cigarette voice seems even raspier now, worn by sand and salt and time. There was a time when that voice could strike fear like the growl of an animal, or curdling disgust in the slime of a four letter word, or even the strange comfort of a rumbling thunderstorm in the middle of the night. But now, it’s weak. It might even be pitiful if the sight of him didn’t simmer her blood with rage. 

“I had to crawl my way back from Hell,” Noodle says. “Do you have any idea how dark it is down there?”

Murdoc looks straight into her glare like it’s the barrel of a gun. Even her eye that’s bruised and swollen bores into him. It’s not the first eye to look at him that way. He nods slowly. 

“I do.”

“Then 

especially should know what I went through down there. And you should be more sorry than you could even begin to cobble together an apology for, not that you’ve ever been good at that.”

Murdoc tries stepping closer to her, but she squares her body away from him defensively. He elects not to approach further. “For a year, I searched endlessly for any sign of you. I thought you were dead. That’s why I stopped looking. I thought you were dead and I felt that looking would only make it feel worse.” He says.

“That’s not an apology.”

“I’m sorry.”

Noodle laughs hollowly. “That undoes it all, doesn’t it?”

Murdoc’s face hardens from guilt to frustration, the new creases in his face deepening. “What the hell do you want from me, then?”

Noodle starts to speak, but the first word stops short of leaving her smeared-lipstick mouth when she sees a sparking, jerky-motioned clone of herself stepping into view— The teenage image of herself frozen in a time she’ll never get back. She narrows her eyes at the Frankensteined Noodle that falls to the ground beside Murdoc.

“You replaced me.”

“It’s not like that.”

“You thought I was dead and the first thing you did was make a new version of me to make another fucking album, so you could go about like nothing happened.”

“It’s not that simple.”

In a split second, Noodle is on top of Cyborg, whaling on the unfortunate robot like she was the source of everything that’s ever wronged her—being born and raised a child soldier, her memories wiped, the bumpy ride in a FedEx crate to the doorstep of an ill-prepared garage band, an even bumpier and morally gray life with that band, her own Dante’s Inferno—all of those things, unloaded onto a creature of wires and metal and silicone that barely understands her commands. Noodle doesn’t even feel Murdoc’s Crypt-Keeper hands under her arms, pulling her off of Cyborg. She can barely see now through her black eye and hot tears. Murdoc wraps his arms around her half in restraint, half in the way he’d hold her when thunder and lightning rattled every window in the late Kong Studios. He shushes her as she starts wailing, stroking her salty hair with his dry, calloused fingers. A blue shape, blurred by her tears, approaches.

“2D,” She chokes.

“You’re alive,” says a familiar voice.

Noodle suddenly abandons her anger as she pushes Murdoc away to embrace 2D. Despite her being four inches taller than she was when she saw him last, he still towers over her like an impressive sunflower. She buries her face in his skeletal chest and sobs into his shirt, even though he smells terrible. For a moment, she is ten years old again, getting a reassuring hug from her big-brother-figure emerging from isolation with a migraine. 

Murdoc touches her shoulder and she’s yanked back to her unfortunate reality. “Noodle, the cyborg wasn’t meant to replace you.”

Noodle slaps his hand away. “Will you fuck off! I don’t want anything to do with you!”

2D turns his body to place himself between them and looks back at Murdoc. “Give her space.”

“She’s had plenty of space! She already got to beat the shit out of me, and she wants an explanation, so I’m gonna give her one! It’s up to her to decide whether or not it satisfies her. Maybe she won’t like hearing it but it’s the truth so it’s what she’s gonna get!”

Noodle glares at him, still holding onto 2D. “Go ahead, Little Man. What’s the reason?”

Murdoc kneels down in the sand and touches the expressionless face of Cyborg. She twitches and makes electric popping sounds—damaged, but still as close to alive as she could philosophically be.

“Another guitarist wouldn’t do. It had to be you. No one plays like you. But it was more than that. No one warmed my cold, dead heart like you. I needed you back in some form or another, so I made her. She looks like you, and plays guitar like you just fine, but she could never replace you. She couldn’t make me laugh like you could, or fill that dead space inside me where my soul used to be. She was never a replacement, just a temporary patch for a leak I desperately needed to fill.”

Noodle wipes her face on her glove, smearing it with makeup and snot. “You made an album.”

“What was I supposed to do, sit around and wallow in misery until my liver finally gives up and I keel over and join you in Hell? People want Gorillaz whether the rest of us are there or not. As long as they hear the angelic tones of 2D, it doesn’t make a difference to them. What, what’s that look for?”

“No, keep talking if you’re trying to dig your own grave.”

Murdoc rubs his face. He stares down at Cyborg’s writhing form. He always found it unsettling, the way she didn’t breathe. He’d look over at her when she was plugged in at night. Her stillness, her chest not rising and falling like a person’s should, silent save for the monotonous beeping—like living with the dead.

“I said I’d tell you the truth and I did. You decide how you want to take it.” Murdoc picks up Cyborg and carries her off, cradling her like she’d fallen asleep in the car. He sits within earshot, lowering himself onto a rock with an old-man grunt. He opens up a hatch in Cyborg’s back and gets to work trying to get her to stop seizing.

Noodle sighs and releases herself from 2D. She plunks herself down on the sand and 2D follows suit.

“You know how in movies, when there’s a clone or a doppelgänger or somefink, and they gotta kill the fake one? And they know it’s the fake one, but they can’t do it cuz it looks like the real one, and they love the real one too much to bear ‘hurtin them?”

Noodle looks at him quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“I know it wasn’t you, she didn’t act like you or even talk and she had all these wires and thingymabobs ‘stickin out, but she did look like you. I wouldn’t be able to hurt her, even if I knew she couldn’t feel it.”

“D, what are you saying?”

“I’m ‘sayin I know Cyborg is just a robot, but even so, I fought it was weird Murdoc could still be so mean to it. I’ve come to expect him ‘treatin me like that, but you, well, not 

, it was just a robot. But she’s s’posed to be you.”

Noodle furrows her eyebrows. “What’d he do to it?”

Murdoc stomps over and grabs 2D by his arm, dragging him aside. “Whose side are you on?” He hisses.

“Wot?”

“Do you want Noodle back or not?”

2D looks past Murdoc at Noodle, still sitting in the sand, an expression muddled with emotions he can’t quite pick apart. “More than ‘anyfin,” he says.

“Then keep your trap shut. This is between me and her. Use that crumpled receipt you call a brain for once. You’re just going to ruin everything and she’s gonna run off again because you don’t know when to shut up.”

2D scrunches his eyebrows. “Of course I want Noodle to come back, but not because you’re ‘lyin to her and ‘manipulatin her.”

“I wasn’t lying!”

“It’s not fair to her to hide the way you treat the robot.” 2D stands up so Murdoc has to crane his neck to look at him, something he knows Murdoc hates doing. “It scared me.”

“Everything scares you because you’re spineless.”

“But I’m not ‘lettin you scare me anymore. I know your scare tactics don’t work on Noodle but I’m not gonna stand by and watch you worm your way into her brain and control her too. You can’t control us anymore. If you want something from us, you’re gonna have to get it by ‘treatin us like people.” With that, 2D turns on his heels before Murdoc can come up with a retort. He storms over to where Noodle is sitting, which isn’t far, and plops beside her. She picks up handfuls of sand and lets the grains sift through her fist.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Noodle,” 2D says.

“I’m not. But I’m glad you’re here,” Noodle says. 

“I’m not. But it’ll be okay,” he puts an arm around her shoulders. “Boy, when Russell’s back to normal, he’s gonna tear Murdoc a new one.” His black eyes follow the Devil himself as he drags Cyborg Noodle further away, muttering to himself, making a point to sit with his back firmly facing them.

“I’m sorry,” Noodle says. Her cat mask is pulled down over her eyes.

“What do you have to be sorry for? You dint do noffin wrong.”

“I just feel like we grew apart as I got older. And I just feel bad that things weren’t the same as when I was a kid. And now that we lost so much time…”

“Oi, you got older, that’s just how it is. Just because you didn’t wanna play games and you like different things than me doesn’t mean you stopped being loik the li’ol sister I never had.” 2D pulls back the cat mask to look at Noodle’s face: sunken with experience, scratched and bruised, and red with sunburn and tears. “You still are.” He rustles her hair and she sniffs, leaning her head into his palm. “So what’s the first thing you wanna do when we get off this bloody island? I’m ‘finkin I’d loik to… see all the horror movies I missed. I rather miss chips as well. Not fish though.”

“I haven’t thought about it. The whole time, all I really cared about was getting back with my wits about me. Then, when I got back, I thought I wanted, I don’t know, vengeance?” Noodle watches Murdoc fiddle with the mechanics of the Cyborg, cursing to himself. It’s uncanny seeing herself from the outside. Her wide mouth, her unruly hair, her scrawny limbs splayed out with Murdoc hunched over like a gruffer, paternal 

. “But I don’t know what I want. It didn’t make me any happier to beat the shit out of him, even if it’s all I’d been dreaming about for five years.” She looks at 2D’s big, timid eyes and sighs. “I shouldn’t be complaining to you of all people.”

“You don’t have to stay if it’s not what you want,” 2D says. “I would love to have you back, and I know Russell would too. But if you want to move on to better fings, don’t hold yourself back for our sake. You might have a shot at ‘havin a normal life. You’re still young, even if you don’t feel it. Your life doesn’t begin and end wif Gorillaz.”

“What about you?” Noodle asks.

2D waves his hand. “Don’t worry about me. After ‘everyfin I’ve been frough, I can handle ‘anyfin.”

“But you shouldn’t have to,” Noodle says. She sits up and hugs him tightly. “I’m staying.”

“Don’t do it because you’re worried about me.”

“I’m doing it because I don’t want to be alone again. I’ve been alone for so long. I just want to be back to normal.”

2D pats her back. “Then welcome back. But it won’t be normal. Normal won’t do anymore.” He looks beyond the top of her head at Murdoc, growling in frustration and cursing at the comatose Cyborg. He looks further in the distance at Russell, sitting on the shore, staring straight into the horizon as he had been. “I’ll make it better for you. I promise.”

“Thanks, 2D.”

“Would you wanna watch those horror movies wif me? I’d be too freaked out to watch ‘em alone.”

“Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -So Plastic Beach huh ladies?  
> -If you've opened a social media app in the past two days you've probably had to process a lot of information so I'm leaving it at that  
> -Anyway, join my dtiys on Instagram @poltergeistsoup to enter a raffle, where you can win a physical copy of Plan Z: Volume 1, Chapter 1, a Mothman sticker, a print, a painted bag, and a free commission https://www.instagram.com/p/CHD8t5KFATk/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link  
> -And here's Plan Z https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	12. A Far Cry from that Happy Landfill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murdoc doesn't want Noodle to leave for a month.

“Grab me a beer too, while you’re up,” Noodle says, twisting around in her plastic chair as Murdoc is about to step one foot through the doorway.

“How do we ask for things in this house?”

“You’re not my real dad and you never will be, get me a beer,” Noodle deadpans.

“You got it. Two Stellas,” Murdoc says, slipping away to the kitchen.

Noodle wraps her blanket tighter around her shoulders. Though it’s cold and windy on the balcony, the last beams of sun brush their yellow fingertips across the western face of Kong and make it bearable. She’s yet to have Miku sit out here with her. She’ll have to remedy that before winter comes knocking.

“Here you go, Your Rottenness,” Murdoc presents a can to Noodle and she accepts it.

“Thank you, Your Shittiness.”

Murdoc takes his seat beside Noodle with an old man grunt. He looks around to see if the coast is clear. “‘Right. No one’s here.”

Noodle reaches into her shirt pocket and presents two rolled joints. Murdoc plucks one from her hand and lights it, then does the same for Noodle’s.

“You’re leaving this weekend?”

“Yup.”

“How long you plan on running off, again?”

“A month. Just a European tour. Looking forward to Amsterdam.”

“Ah, Amsterdam,” Murdoc says wistfully. “I don’t remember it at all.” He takes a puff from his joint. “You like this girl, yeah? Serious about her?”

“It hasn’t been that long, but yeah, I’d say so.”

“Wouldn’t it be something for you to be the first in the band to get serious?”

Noodle considers mentioning that 2D’s been “serious” a handful of times that fell apart due to “outside forces,” but opts to take a long, slow hit from her joint instead. “Makes you feel old, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does.” 

“You know, I realized the other day, that next year, I’m gonna be the same age you were when you first started the band. In its fetal stages at least. Now that’s fucked up to think about.”

“Christ, I try not to,” Murdoc says, rubbing his eye with his palm. “But if anything, it speaks to how old  _ you _ are, not me.”

“I don’t feel old at all. Actually, I think I felt older when I was thirteen. Writing and producing, reading philosophy books to feel smarter than everyone. I felt like I had to keep up with all the adults around me to be taken seriously. I thought I knew everything. Thank God I’m stupid now. It’s freeing.”

“Cheers to getting stupider, love. Here’s to another year of losing brain cells,” Murdoc says, and they clink their cans together. They sit in silence for a moment, watching the landscape don its fiery orange cloak, the shapes of cars fading into glowing red and white dots zipping down the street below.

“This sure is a far cry from that happy landfill,” Noodle says.

“Still smells like shit, though.”

“You ever miss it?”

“The landfill?”

“The old Kong. Like, it was a biohazardous bin of debauchery, but you know, it was my childhood for a time.”

“I don’t miss  _ places _ . S’just a building. But ohhh, I do miss Amsterdam. I’d love to go back and remember it next time.”

Noodle looks over her cat-eye sunglasses at him. “I’m asking do you ever get nostalgic for that time?”

Murdoc’s mouth twists thoughtfully. Is there a right or wrong answer to the question? He’ll pick the wrong answer, somehow. “Should I?” Judging by Noodle’s tight lips, there’s something in between the lines he’s not picking up. “Look, I don’t know what you’re dancing around, just spit it out and make it easier for the both of us.”

Noodle considers how she wants to word her next question as she fiddles with a loose thread on her blanket. “Were you happy having me around as a kid?”

“Of course I was, the band wouldn’t be where it is now if it weren’t for y--”

“Not as a guitarist. As a kid. Were you happy having me there outside of what I did for the band?”

Murdoc blinks with the blankness of a frog. “What makes you ask a thing like that?”

“Because I don’t know. Like I know now, we’re all good, it’s not about the now. But as a kid, I kinda felt like you didn’t want anything to do with me unless it benefitted you. I get that it wasn’t personal, that it had nothing to do with  _ me _ \--”

“I never did anything to hurt you, right? Never on purpose. I let you get away with stuff, you got to stay up late, sit in the front seat of the car, I’d buy you things--”

“Nevermind. Just forget it. There’s no reason for me to dig it up. Sorry.”

“What? What’d I say? I don’t know how many times you want me to apologize.”

“I know. There was no point in bringing it up. There’s no undoing it and there’s only so much you can do now to make up for it.”

“If I could go back and do it over and do it better, I would. If I wasn’t such a bastard, maybe we could’ve made twice as many albums. We’d be in even better shape now. I’m the cause of everything that’s gone wrong. I’ve royally screwed up the times we were all together, and I’m the reason we’ve spent so much time apart. You could have so much more out of life if it weren’t for me. I’d fix it if I could, you know that.”

“I know. And I know it’s a moot point. I won’t bring it up again. We’ll drop it.” Noodle stands up to flick on the balcony light, now that dark has taken over London, swallowing them into silhouettes save for the glow of a roach. She shudders as the wind blows through her blanket.

“We can go in if you’re cold,” Murdoc offers. Noodle shakes her head.

“I’m fine. I’m in no rush.” She sits once again, placing her joint between her lips, and props her glasses on top of her head. “I wish there were stars. Too much light in the city.”

“Out in the middle of the ocean,” Murdoc says. “There were so many stars, it scared the shit out of me. It doesn’t occur to you that they’re always there until you see ‘em all. All those stars, too dark to see your own hand-- makes you feel like you’re nothing at all, really.”

Noodle nods, gazing up to the few pitiful stars trying their mightiest to shine through the clouds and light pollution. A gust of wind tosses her hair and she shivers again, her teeth clacking together like a couple of castanets. Murdoc shrugs his jacket off and drapes it over her shoulders. It smells like Malboros, but it’s warm from his body heat.

“You don’t have to--”

Murdoc cuts her off with a wave of his hand, a tentacle of his octopus tattoo peeking out from his sleeve as if it’s waving too. She thanks him and they sit quietly once again, smoking their respective joints.

“I don’t think you should go,” Murdoc says.

“Huh? Why?” Noodle asks, furrowing her eyebrows.

Murdoc makes a vague gesture with his hands. “You know, the album.”

“We just finished the album. You guys won’t need me here. If you’re worried about my safety, worry about the well-being of anyone who tries to cross me.”

Murdoc runs his bony fingers through his hair. “Then I don’t  _ want _ you to go.”

“Well that’s different then, isn’t it? 2D and Russel will be here to make sure you don’t chew up the couch. It’s a month. If we can spend five years apart, what’s a month?”

“Yeah,” Murdoc mumbles, chewing the red nail polish off his nails. “ _ What’s a month _ ?”

***

The computer screen stares back at Murdoc, it’s accusatory brightness painting the studio a sickly blue. He scrutinizes the upanddown squiggles that layer together to make up their new album. He thinks himself a bomb technician-- cut the right wire. It’d be no good cutting 2D’s vocals, and he’d be torn a new one if God forbid he accidentally delete one of the collaborators’ works. She’d just have to redo some guitar parts. That’s all. Nothing detrimental, just enough to be kept busy. He gnaws his thumbnail, weighing the outcome once again. She’d stay behind, sure, but she wouldn’t be happy. What’s a month? A month having the time of her life around Europe with that new girlfriend of hers. Plenty of time to find something better to do with her time than this band. Plenty of time to decide not to come back. She says they’re getting serious. He’s never been “serious” with anyone, he has no idea what “serious” indicates. He clicks one of the tracks, listens to Noodle’s guitar play softly through the headphones. She’s always been fine on her own. Great, even. Should their paths have gone differently, she’d have found success without the band. She’s just that good. Always has been. Murdoc rubs his eyes. Ironic. There’s been plenty of times he’s sacrificed being in the good graces of his bandmates for the sake of the music, and here he is-- a complete 180. Sweet Satan, what’s come over him?

Murdoc sighs, staring at the luminescent keyboard as if waiting for the letters to spell out the right answer for him. A knock at the door jolts him from his trance and he whips around to see Russel in the doorway. Murdoc throws the headphones from his head like they’re the offending party.

“Muds? What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Just going over the album one last time.”

“We agreed all the decisions on the music would be made as a group.”

“I wasn’t gonna touch ‘em,” Murdoc lies. “Nothing’s changed. You can listen to ‘em yourself if you don’t believe me.” He gets up, holding eye contact with Russel as he leaves. “Smashing, by the way. It’s all smashing. As always. Could use a little more bass, though, just old Murdoc’s humble opinion.”

Russel grabs Murdoc’s shirt by the back of his collar before he can slither away. He spins him around to face him. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Muds, but I think you know better. Go to bed. Unless you need me to tuck you in.”

“Oh, I’d love a bedtime story,” Murdoc sneers.

“How about I read you the riot act?”

“I already read it myself. I found it dry and far too wordy. Goodnight, Sweet Prince.” Murdoc takes Russel’s face in his hands and plants a wet, mocking kiss on his nose before slipping from his grasp and making himself scarce. Russel watches him scamper off into the dark, scrunching his nose at the faint, skunky smell left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Happy Friday the 13th! It's the only day of the year where Jason Vorhees can dress like a total slut and no one can say anything about it. I think that's how it goes anyway.  
> -I think it's kinda obvious by now but this fic is kinda headed in a more somber and angsty direction. I'll try to keep it funny and heartwarming but just a heads up if you came here for fluff. I might write some more lighthearted one-shots to post alongside heavier chapters so lmk what y'all think of that plan  
> -I also finished Volume 1 of Plan Z and I'm very happy about it! Read it here if you haven't already https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz  
> -And while you're at it, join my dtiys https://www.instagram.com/p/CHD8t5KFATk/


	13. Old Habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Russel gets an unexpected visitor while working on one of his taxidermies.

It’s easy to lose track of time hunched over a desk. Russel’s eyes hurt from squinting at the minute details of his taxidermied bird, telling him the room has been dark for hours. He sets the bird down gently. It stares back at him, stiff and restless, not quite mimicking life nor death. It needs more work. Russel bargains with the clock: 2:35. He decides it will have to wait. He swivels his chair around, stretching his stagnant legs and sighs to himself. At first, he doesn’t even notice the red eye in the doorway catching the light from his desk lamp. He startles, thumping his elbow against the desk and rattling his tools.

“Sorry,” says the red eye in a familiar gravelly voice. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“So you stand there like a ‘frickin vampire?” Russel says, straightening out his workspace. Not only is it startling to spot Murdoc lurking in the doorway, but it’s also unusual for him to seek out Russel’s attention. They tend to stay out of each other’s space, the way one wouldn’t stick their nose in their coworker’s cubicle without a good reason. “What is it?” Russel asks. “Is everything okay with Noodle and ‘D?”

“They’re fine, far as I know.”

“Then what is it?”

The red eye gazes down to the floor. He stays rooted to the doorway as if he’s following the vampire code of waiting to be invited in.

“This must be about your feelings since you won’t tell me what you’re here for.”

“Not if you’re going to patronize me,” Murdoc growls. “I’ll go to bed. I won’t bother you.”

“No, I’m not. You can come in. Sit.”

Murdoc steps into the yellow light. His eyes are sleepless, but that’s normal for him. The sound of Murdoc’s Cuban heels creaking the floorboards through the night has been consistent in every weird building Gorillaz have called home. By now it’s practically white noise. He continues to haunt the new Kong studios, pacing up and down the stairs and hallways--an anxious Dracula. He picks up his pacing across the floor of Russel’s room, back and forth, until Russel gently offers him his bed to sit on. Murdoc complies, sitting with his knees spread, his forearms resting on his thighs, and his spine hunched forward.

“What’s the matter?” Russel asks.

“Nothing’s  _ the matter, _ ” Murdoc says. “Do you have to sound like a bloody shrink?”

“I’m not talking like a shrink, you’re just afraid of opening up even though that’s what you came here for,” Russel says. Although, he does suppose the setup feels like a shrink’s office, with Murdoc, seated uncomfortably on Russel’s bed while Russel observes him from his swivel chair like he’s ready to take notes. All he’s missing is a pipe and a pad of yellow legal paper. Murdoc’s never going to talk if he feels like he’s being Freuded at.

Murdoc ignores Russel’s statement. “What’re you working on?” He asks.

Russel picks up the bird from his desk and nests it in his hands. He scoots his chair closer so Murdoc can see. “This bird. Found him in the alley under the back window. Must’ve run into the glass.”

“Is that a raven?”

“A crow. Ravens are bigger. But you like corvids in general, right?”

“I do,” Murdoc says. “This one’s a lovely little fellow, isn’t he?” He pokes at the blueblack feathers with a pointy nail, patches of chipped red polish hanging on to the base of it. It must’ve been a minute since he’d last seen his nail tech/ usual surrogate therapist, Margaret.

“You can hold it if you want. He’s mostly finished. I just have to spruce up some details later.” Russel places the bird in Murdoc’s hands and watches Murdoc inspect it with rare gentleness.

“I ran into 2D in the kitchen the other night.”

“And?”

“Well, we just chattered a bit. One of those late-night talks where you’re feeling uncharacteristically open because it feels like no one’s listening. Funny thing, how everything feels so much louder in the dark? Like the lights are on one moment and it’s all well and good but the moment it’s dark you suddenly feel like you’ve got to whisper, even if nothing else has changed. You think it’s an e-volutionary thing? Like your instincts tell you to be quieter ‘cos you can’t see predators?”

“What about 2D?”

“Well he was talking quiet too, so it can’t just be me who feels that way about having to wisp--”

“I mean, what was this talk about?”

“Hey! No leading questions!” Murdoc looks back down at the crow before continuing. “He just said he’s glad we can be friends now. That I’ve gotten better.”

“That’s it?”

Murdoc lets out a frustrated sigh, hangs his head so his bangs obscure his face. Russel considers pressing further but opts to stay quiet and see if silence does a better job squeezing the words out.

“I told him how I feel about him,” Murdoc says quietly.

Russel closes his eyes and nods knowingly. Murdoc looks up at him.

“You’re not going to ask what that means?”

“I know what that means. Go on. How’d he take it?”

“Same as you. Says he’s known for years,” Murdoc rubs his forehead with his palm. “Christ, it’s humiliating. If that oblivious twit picked up on it, think about how long I must’ve looked like a massive twat to everyone else!”

Russel doesn’t have to think about it, he could tell him firsthand-- _ You’re a terrible actor. But you put on a good show treating him like a punching bag to compensate for it-- _ But he knows how quickly a statement like that could flip his switch, and honesty like this is hard to come by from Murdoc. So Russel stays quiet and waits for Murdoc to make the next move, like a wildlife photographer waiting to see if the creature will give him the perfect shot.

“And I asked him if, since we’re getting along now, if…” Murdoc squeezes his eyes shut. “Satan help me, I feel like such a wanker saying it.”

“And?”

“Well, of course he said no! You think I’m here to celebrate?”

“Are you surprised?”

“No! Mostly, no. The way he used to idolize me? There was a time where he’d jump at the chance. But now that he’s got this newfound self-worth, and after all the shit I put him through, why wouldn’t he say no?” Murdoc pauses, stroking the crow’s head with his thumbs. “I guess I’m just surprised at how polite he said it. Even said he likes being friends despite it all. I don’t know if it’d make me feel better or worse if he just laughed in my face. I know I would if I were in his position.”

“You have to accept his answer and move on,” Russel says.

“I  _ know _ I do. I don’t have a choice. This is the closest I’ll ever get to what I want and I’ll only be able to have it if I keep being nice.”

“That’s how it works, Muds. You have to be respectful of other people for them to let you be a part of their lives. And it’s worked, hasn’t it? They feel like they can trust you enough to let you back in. Isn’t that what you want?”

Murdoc holds out the crow for Russel to take it back. Russel accepts it and puts it back on his desk.

“I should be happy. I’d be nothing without them. I know that from experience. I need them to like me. And I finally have that. They tell me they’re proud of me for becoming a better person and that for once everything feels right. But it doesn’t make me happy. I was happier when I was a huge bastard. I’m not a changed man. If I was, I wouldn’t  _ want  _ to control and manipulate the people I care about. It’s selfish and vile, but maybe I  _ am _ selfish and vile.”

Russel doesn’t respond. Murdoc fills the silence for him by continuing:

“I can either have their love and approval at the cost of holding back my true, vile, putrid self, or I can dominate everyone and be as selfish as my shriveled little heart desires and drive off the only people who care about me.”

Murdoc holds his head in his hands, mussing his hair as he tangles his fingers in it. Russel wonders if he should put his hand on his shoulder. He starts reaching out to do so, decides it’s too performative a gesture, and pulls his hand back. He sits like a stone wall, watching Murdoc’s turmoil flayed out like a duffel bag unzipped to reveal alien viscera inside. It’s too strange seeing him so open, especially when Russel’s not fit to grapple with such a tangled mess. He reaches for a different question.

“Why me?” Russel asks.

“What about you?”

“Why’d you come to me? We don’t talk about anything outside of business and music when the others aren’t involved. You know I don’t trust you to begin with. You know I’m not going to validate you. So why me?”

“Because you’re not going to bullshit me with ‘you’re not a bad person for feeling the way you do.’ I am a bad person. You have Noodle and 2D’s best interests in mind and you’re not going to coddle me. That’s why I’m asking you.” Murdoc lifts his head to meet Russel’s eye for the first time since he was standing in the doorway. “Why can’t I be happy?”

Russel adjusts his position in his seat with a grunt, thinking about how to answer. He figures at this point, it’s appropriate to play shrink. “You want to control them because you’re afraid that if they have the autonomy to decide you’re no good to them, they’ll leave. And you’re afraid of that because you know they have good reason to. You’ve treated everyone like shit for so long, they have no reason to trust you, and ‘being nice’ is only a band-aid that can’t guarantee they’ll stick around. Especially because you don’t want to be nice. It’s not in your instincts to get what you want by being nice.”

Murdoc stares back at Russel attentively. His eyebrows furrow like he doesn’t like what he’s hearing, but he doesn’t cut him off. Russel continues, propping his head against his fist.

“You’re right, Muds. I’m  _ not  _ going to tell you you’re not a bad person. But I’m also not going to tell you you’re not a good person. What you are is guilty and afraid of not being in control.”  _ Not bad _ , Russel thinks to himself. He wears that “shrink” cap well.

Murdoc’s hands are clasped together, pressed against his mouth. His knee bounces, squeaking the floor with an anxious rhythm. “What do I do?”

“You know what you have to do. Take ‘no” for an answer. Keep being nice, even if you don’t want to be. Because it’s the right thing to do. And because if you step out of line, I’ll shove my foot so far up your ass you’ll have to shit out my sneakers.”

“I know,” Murdoc says. He looks away pitifully. “But I don’t want you lot to leave me behind again.”

“You just have to trust we won’t.” Russel puts his hand on Murdoc’s shoulder and gives him a half-smile. “Hell, I’m still here, and I don’t even like you.”

“You’re a bloody arsehole,” Murdoc says. He stops bouncing his leg and returns the same half-smile. “I respect that.”

Russel stands up at long last and stretches. “I have to go to sleep. But if you need to stay with someone, you can sleep in here tonight.”

Murdoc rolls his eyes and gets up. “Right, do you have sleepovers with  _ your _ therapist? I can take care of myself.”

“That’s a relief. I really didn’t want your stank in my room,” Russel says.

Murdoc flips him the bird as he walks himself to the door. On his way out, he looks over his shoulder at Russel.

“Thanks, Russ,” he says.

Russel nods. “No problem, man.”

“Swell job on the bird, by the way. No one patches up rancid, dead things and makes them all pretty again like you do.” And with that, he shuts the door, and the creaking of his nightly pacing commences once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This is one of my other favorite chapters I've written for this fic  
> -I love Russel and Murdoc's dynamic, I wish we got to see it more after phase 2  
> -Read Plan Z babey!! https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	14. Grown-Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle is reminded that she can't control the way other people perceive her after an alarming encounter with a sleazy stranger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for harassment since this chapter is kinda heavy-- Noodle encounters a guy with a really creepy vibe. Nothing bad happens to her, but if you're triggered by creepy men or girls in uncomfortable situations, feel free to skip. I'm posting a light-hearted chapter under a new series, "Calling the World from Isolation," along with this one, so you can read that one instead or if you want something more positive afterward.

Noodle stumbles over the mess of wires and amps as she makes her way to the stairs back to the greenroom. She mumbles  _ hellos _ to the crew rushing past her to and fro until she emerges into the empty stairwell, quiet save for the hum of fluorescent lights. She knows she’s been sent on a pointless task, retrieving Miku’s jacket, but she could tell by Miku’s tone that her tipsy antics are getting a little distracting. Turns out, going on holiday with your girlfriend is pretty boring when you’re the only one actually on holiday. Perhaps she did start the party a little early tonight-- a few Mai Tais deep by six P.M. Still, sensing her girlfriend’s frustration with her makes her want to tuck her tail between her legs and scamper off until she sobers up.

She drags her finger along the chipping, white plaster of the wall descending the stairs. Sharpied names of hundreds of music stars big and obscure are scrawled all around her. She wracks her brain to remember if Gorillaz ever played here. She’s signed so many venue walls, it’s hard to keep track. She keeps her eyes peeled for her own child-penmanship amongst the names, though they’re all starting to swim the longer she looks. She nearly bumps into a bulldog-faced man walking in the opposite direction, carrying an armful of chords.

“Oh, ‘scuse me,” Noodle says, steadying herself against the railing.

“No worries,” the man says. His black tee shirt indicates  _ crew _ , and his smell indicates  _ coming back from a smoke break _ . “Hey, I recognize you from somewhere. Some music act, I think, am I right?”

“Gorillaz, yeah,” Noodle says.

“Oh! Yeah! You’re the little one! Well, not little anymore. That’s crazy, I remember seeing you on MTV back in the day. Amazingly talented, I was like  _ man, that kid’s got so much potential _ .”

“Haha, thanks,” Noodle says, smiling.

“So cool to finally meet you, I’m Sal,” the bulldog-faced man says, taking Noodle’s hand and shaking it with gusto.

“I’m Noodle,” Noodle says, and immediately cringes at herself. “Obviously.”

Sal laughs. “It’s crazy, seeing you now. All grown up.”

Noodle nods as she takes another step down the stairs, but Sal doesn’t let go of her hand.

“Working as the Crew, I get to meet a lot of famous people. You name ‘em I probably know ‘em.”

“Must be a cool job,” Noodle says, smiling her best.

“I get to meet a lot of stars. Not all of them are as pretty in person.”

Noodle’s stomach drops like she’s teetering the edge of a roller coaster. She knows her cue to leave when she sees it. “Thanks,” she musters. “I gotta--”

“I meet all these stars and they’re young and pretty but then they all get into drugs and let themselves get ugly. They grow up real fast.”

Noodle feels her feet go numb as all the blood in her body shoots up to her head. The stairwell is unbearably hot, all of a sudden. She tugs her arm with a plastered smile, but Sal’s hand is wrapped around her wrist like a clammy squid.

“Not you, though. I knew you’d grow up to be real pretty. Thought we lost  _ you _ like that when you disappeared for a while, but then you came back a woman. You must’ve had the boys all over you.”

It’s as if the repertoire of dry wit Noodle’s built up over the years has gone M.I.A. Even her body has failed her. Her bandmates have always said that they wouldn’t have to worry about anything bad happening to her, because she’d turn them into cretin ceviche. She’d play out these scenarios in her head-- delivering a snappy retort followed by snapping bones if some oddball interviewer got too personal. Why can’t she move? She might be lower on the stairs, but she’d have the upper hand-- all she’d have to do is yank him and throw him down the stairs. Miku would surely take her side. What’s stopping her?

“I liked that one photo you did. The Debbie Harry one. With the ripped shirt. I like that one.”

Noodle grabs Sal’s wrist and jerks him forward, sending him sprawling down the stairs with a series of thumps and grunts. She stumbles back from the force, but catches herself on the railing before scrambling up the stairs. She could vaguely hear him howl something in her direction, something to the tune of “ _ you crazy bitch! _ ” but her ears are ringing and everything feels like soup. She runs like she’s in the ocean, desperately trying to get through the last few feet of shallow water to get to shore. As she turns a corner, she nearly collides with Miku and another crew member. Miku lets out a noise of surprise as she catches Noodle.

“We were just about to come looking for you. What’s wrong?” 

Noodle tries to sputter out an answer as she’s catching her breath. Miku brushes her hair out of her face. “Just relax. What happened?”

“This guy in the crew… uh, I don’t remember his name… uh… I had a creepy run-in with him and I pushed him on the stairs and--”

“Which guy? The guy that looks like a… like a pug?” Miku frames her face with her hands for clarity.

“Yeah, like a bulldog. Sal. That was his name. He was just being weird. He had a bad vibe to him, I’m sorry if I caused--”

“No, no, don’t be. I thought he had a weird vibe too, I’m sorry you were the one that had to uncover it.” Miku turns to the other crew member. “Would you go take care of him?”

The crew member nods and jogs away. Miku rubs Noodle’s arm. “Don’t worry. By taking care of him, I meant…” Miku drags her finger across her throat. “I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t the one who hired him. If I had known he was like that I would have never let him step foot here. Did he hurt you?”

“I’m not hurt. I’m embarrassed. It’s just… I froze. I don’t know why I froze. I’m literally trained to kill. I was raised by the biggest bastards there are and I don’t take shit from anyone, by all means I should have been able to shut that fucker down sooner.” Noodle’s vision starts to blur with tears. “Why was I such a coward?”

“You’re not a coward. If someone else was in the same position and they reacted the same way, would you think they were a coward?”

Noodle considers this point as she pushes her bangs back from her sweaty forehead. “No. But I know myself. I’m stronger than that.”

“So you froze at first. It doesn’t mean you’re not strong. Even if it was a moment of weakness--which I don’t see it as-- you’re allowed to have those. You don’t have to be strong all the time.” Miku sits Noodle down against the wall and sits beside her.

“I’m just used to being able to handle things myself. I crawled my way out of Hell, but I let one creep scare me? I’m the fucking super-soldier child prodigy of Gorillaz, and I’m bent out of shape over some weird old man?”

“Bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it’s picking yourself up in spite of it. Which you did. You’ll be okay.” Miku gently holds Noodle’s head against her shoulder and kisses her forehead.

Noodle wipes her face on her sleeve. “I wasn’t raised to get scared of nothing.”

Miku takes Noodle’s hand. “Who said you can’t cry sometimes?”

“No one. But I know it makes others sad when I do. I’m used to holding it together. I don’t like making others worry about me.”

“Hey, if you wanna have a moment of weakness, I won’t tell anyone,” Miku says. “We can say you killed him single-handedly.”

Noodle laughs weakly. “Thanks.”

“Sorry I was short with you earlier. I was stressed out about getting this show together. It’s bad enough without you murdering the crew.”

“I was being a drunk nuisance. I don’t get the chance to be on tour and goof off very often. I shouldn’t have let it get in your way.”

“Well, we have tomorrow night off. We’ll make up for this.”

Noodle smiles and nuzzles into Miku’s shoulder. “Thanks, Blue.”

They sit there for a few minutes. Whether the world decides to stop for them or keep spinning is no concern of theirs. The corners of Noodle’s mouth droop as she considers speaking again. “Hey, Miku? I don’t wanna bring the mood down again, but I have kind of a dark question. Just because I feel like you’d understand it, being famous as a teenager.”

“What is it?”

“Is it more insidious for viewers to seemingly wait for you to grow up, or have them jump the gun?”

Miku processes the question, stroking Noodle’s hair. “They’re pretty much the same thing, aren’t they?” Miku sighs solemnly. “Does it have to do with something he said to you? I might have to kill him myself.”

“I feel like it’s something you always  _ know _ subconsciously, that people look at you like that and you can’t control it. But it doesn’t really prepare you for the moment it’s looking you in the face. Realizing you were raised for slaughter. And as much as the people that love you might try to shield you from it, or how much you try to take it into your own hands-- in the end, I don’t have a say in how other people paint me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Sorry this fic gets dark sometimes, but I wouldn't write something with bad vibes for the sake of shock value  
> -This chapter is about stuff I think about all the time-- when you're raised as a girl/present femininely, and how it feels like you can't control the way people see you or think about you (and also the way I feel about how we saw Noodle grow up and how she's portrayed in Phase 1 versus now :/) I hope those ideas come across clearly  
> -As I said in the notes in the beginning, I'm posting a new series called "Calling the World from Isolation" you can read for something lighter. I try to include fun and goofy one-shots to counter the darker chapters for this fic because I don't want anyone to leave my fic feeling bad!!  
> -As always, read Plan Z. I love you <3 https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	15. Reboot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murdoc brings back a face the band hasn't seen in some time.

When she wakes up, she doesn’t find herself in the broom closet where she was powered down. The room she awakens in is bright, walls screaming salmon pink-- the image of a wretched beach of the same hue flashes through the hardware in her skull. Her mechanical pupils whir into focus and the green face of her creator— the Frankenstein to her Monster— peers back at her. She blinks him back into memory. She has been asleep for a while. He unfurls a grin, revealing smoker’s teeth.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” He says, pushing her bangs out of her eyes. “We’re not on Plastic Beach anymore.”

Plastic Beach. Zeroes and ones swirl through her head, reconstructing what those words mean. The rumble of planes, the gritty putter of machine guns, the stench of rum and low tide-- a salty hell. She remembers.

Cyborg’s arm metamorphizes into a rifle and peppers the wall with bullet holes, missing Murdoc and marring the fresh paint. Murdoc frantically wrestles her arms to her sides and pops her rifle-arm off at the shoulder, ceasing the barrage of gunfire. 

“Relax, relax, shhhh,” He says. His arms are wrapped around her in a half-hug, half-nelson. The only sound other than his voice is the rolling of empty shells across the floor. “It’s okay, there’s no need for that.”

Cyborg releases the tension in her remaining arm and he slowly lets go of her. They both stand up and look at each other. She keeps her body squared off away from him, her gaze fixed and poignant. She is not ready to trust him. He may have woken her up, but he was the one who led her into a dank closet and held down the power button on her back until everything went dark.

“You remember me? Murdoc?”

Unfortunately.

“Listen, kid, I feel bad about that whole ordeal on the beach. You make a hell of a bodyguard, but you deserve to be more than a weapon.”

Cyborg studies him, processing his words. He interprets her silent stare as attentive listening.

“I’m gonna make it up to you,” He continues. “You deserve to be a kid. I’m gonna give you that chance. You can trust me, love. I’m gonna make it better this time.”

Cyborg cocks her head, keeping her eyes locked on his. Expressions are hard. She can see the basics: mouths stretched wide means happy, drooping brows means sad, crinkled eyebrows and bared teeth mean angry. These, she picked up on quickly. But she learned these are guidelines, not rules. Smiles can mean a lot. Happy, pleased, excited, kind, deceptive. How is she supposed to figure out which of these things Murdoc’s smile means?

He holds out the detached arm. Cyborg finally shifts her stare away from his face and onto the arm. It’s loose in his fingers, easy for taking. She wraps her fingers around the slender bicep and clicks the arm back onto its socket, returning the hand to its natural human shape. She flexes the fingers. Murdoc is still smiling. He never smiled this much on Plastic Beach. What’s that supposed to mean? Now, he outstretches his arms.

“Come here,” He says.

Hesitantly, she obeys, stepping closer until she’s inches away. He wraps his arms around her again, but this time, more gently. If she so desired, she could easily rip them off of her and push him away, but she opts not to. For now, she allows him to hold her, as alien as this gesture is.

“I’ll never let anything hurt you again,” He says, quieter. “I mean it this time.”

Cyborg doesn’t always understand what Murdoc is saying. His words can be hard to process if they’re new and unfamiliar. This is one of those times. But the tone of his voice is calm, so perhaps whatever he’s saying, it means she doesn’t have to go back in the broom closet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This is my own take on Cyborg, where she doesn’t age and she’s got more robot-stuff going on. Fuck it: shotgun arm!  
> -Plan Z, read it, link in every other chapter, join my dtiys on Instagram, you know how it goes


	16. Murdoc’s Fine Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyborg is back and Russel tells Murdoc he's an idiot.

“Muds, are you nuts?”

Cyborg stares at the large man, trying to place him in her memory. She’s seen him before, but he wasn’t on Plastic Beach with them. If she  _ has  _ seen him, he’s different now. Perhaps he used to be taller? She picks up the TV remote and fiddles with the piece on the back, clicking it in and out of place.

“What if we need a guitarist on short notice while Noodle’s gone? I figured we got a perfectly good one in storage, so why not? Just in case!”

“And what are we gonna do if we don’t need her? Turn her--”

Murdoc shushes him quickly. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “We can’t, Russ. She’s self-aware.” He glances over to Cyborg, then leans in closer. “So we can’t say things like,” he mimes pressing a button, then a buckling robotic motion with his arms and legs. “Got it? It upsets her.”

“Well, that’s a fine mess you got yourself into. What were you thinking? You really plan on looking after the Cyborg indefinitely now because… what? It’s not the guitarist thing, that’s bullshit. Why did you wake her up? You can’t miss Nood--”

“Shhhhhhhhe also gets upset when you mention… the other one.”

“Oh, that’s gonna go over  _ really  _ well when she gets back.”

Cyborg picks her head up. Murdoc throws her a wide, graveyard-toothed smile. He bends over with his hands on his thighs like he’s talking to a toddler. “Oi, love, do you want a snack or something?”

“Can she eat?” Russel asks.

“I have no bloody idea,” Murdoc mumbles back.

Cyborg stares back at him, her expression unchanged.

Murdoc straightens up again, still smiling. “Just sit tight, love, we’re just talking.” He takes Russel by the arm and addresses him once again. “We shouldn’t be arguing in front of her, let’s take this somewhere else.”

“Are you unwell?”

Murdoc leads Russel to the adjacent room, with Cyborg still visible through the doorway.

“I don’t know what it is you’re up to now, but if she’s self-aware like you said she is, it’s cruel to get her involved in your deranged little world,” Russel says, arms folded, a cross-shaped wrinkle between his brows.

Murdoc runs a hand through his mop of hair, spits of gray moving in amongst the dark strands. “I’d just been thinking about Noodle, how we didn’t really give her the chance to be a kid, then we missed out on seeing her grow up, and… you know. I was feeling sentimental about it, I suppose.”

“Oh, great, you’re putting  _ her  _ through it so  _ you _ can feel better.” Russel pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s not sentimental, Muds. It’s selfish. You can’t go back and fix things for Noodle, especially not like this.”

They both look back at Cyborg, who’s still deeply focused on clicking and unclicking the back of the TV remote.

“Maybe not for Noodle,” Murdoc hangs his head. “Can’t even begin to undo it all for Stu.”

Russel raises his eyebrows at the use of 2D’s real name.

“But can’t I try? I can’t give Noodle the chance to be a kid, but  _ she  _ still is! Look at her. You don’t think she deserves it?”

“I wouldn’t wish your paternity on anyone, frankly,” Russel says. “But it’s too late now, I guess. I just hope you realize what you’ve gotten yourself into. This is all on you, got it? I’m not a babysitter. I’ve got my own things to do.”

“Right, of course, I’m not daft. I’ve looked after her before, I can do it again.”

Russel opens his mouth to speak, but Murdoc cuts him off.

“Only better this time! Muuuuuch better this time around!  _ Completely  _ different circumstances!” Murdoc puts his hand on Russel’s shoulder. “I’m medicated now.”

Russel nods dubiously. “Alright. But whatever goes down when  _ the other one _ gets back is on your hands. I’m taking 2D and going to a movie, having a nice dinner, seeing a man about a horse, whatever, it’s  _ your _ problem.”

“I can handle it!” Murdoc says. He pokes his head back into the living room. “How are we doing, lov--NOOOO, no, no, no!”

Cyborg freezes, the batteries from the TV remote in her mouth. She  _ was _ appreciating the clacking noise they make before she’d been caught.

“Hey! Hey! We don’t put those in our mouth!” Russel says.

They both rush over, nearly knocking over furniture in their wake. Cyborg quickly swallows the batteries, hoping to hide the evidence before they get close. Murdoc and Russel stop and look at her like they’d just watched their car tip over into a lake. She clicks the cover back into place on the remote and sets it on the coffee table, then folds her hands in her lap innocently, all without breaking eye contact.

“Is that bad?” Russel asks.

“I don’t know, I’m not sure where they’d end up in there, quite honestly,” Murdoc says. “Sheeeeeeeeee’s probably fine.”

“Do we take her to a doctor?”

“Do we know a mechanic?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I'm havin a grand old time with my interpretation of Cyborg, can't wait to write more with her!  
> \--I feel bad for not having 2D here as much because I do like him and I have thoughts and ideas for him. I just don’t know where to fit him in this story because in this narrative, he’s doing better and he’s in his own groove-- doesn’t really fit in with the dysfunctionality. If anyone wants to see more of 2D, feel free to comment and I’ll try to write him into future chapters or maybe give him more focus in one-shots. I have ideas about his character circa DoYaThing if anyone wants to see that!  
> -I might take a hiatus and skip next week to work on writing more chapters since I've been busy and I'm caught up at this point. If I don't post next week, I'll post a one-shot instead  
> -As always, read Volume 1 of Plan Z https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz  
> -My Plan Z dtiys ends on the 15th as well if any of you happen to be interested! Details on my Instagram @poltergeistsoup


	17. Looking at the Big Picture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyborg seeks out 2D and Russel in an attempt to escape from Murdoc's overbearing attention.

Cyborg can tell Murdoc gets offended when she pushes him away, but come on, he sees her every day-- why does he need to hug her all the time? Back on Plastic Beach, if he wasn’t barking demands at her, he’d leave her to her own devices. When he was locked up in his room doing his radio show or whatever, she’d have the afternoon to herself-- not that there was much to do. It wasn’t a very fun or exciting existence, but she wonders if it was preferable to the smothering. 

Once Murdoc slumps away, poorly hiding his disappointment, Cyborg gets up and ventures off to look for a place he can’t bother her. As many weird rooms as there are, he somehow always finds her to shove another gift at her-- garish jackets, noisy boots with platforms, confusing video games, toys that seem more suited for a kid much smaller than her-- stuff she doesn’t even know what to do with. Or, even more annoyingly, he might try to get her to play guitar with him. She can play it alright-- it comes as naturally to her as breathing to a living thing-- but she just doesn’t want to.

Cyborg stops in front of a door she’s never opened yet, one with shiny cat stickers and a sign with letters she can’t read. Murdoc’s been lax about telling her what she can and can’t do-- he almost seems afraid of telling her “no”-- but he’d told her this room is off-limits. All the more perfect to hide from him. She turns the door handle, but it doesn’t budge. She wriggles the handle again in vain. She tries wrenching it back and forth. Frustrated, she kicks the bottom with her boot.

“Hey, what’s going on out here?”

Cyborg turns to see Russel in the doorway behind her. She puts her hands behind her back and rocks back and forth on her feet. It’s what they do in cartoons to show innocence. She likes cartoons.

“That room’s off-limits, kid, you know that,” Russel says. “No need to break things, I’m trying to get my security deposit back for once.”

Cyborg looks behind her around the corner at the sound of footsteps.

“Hiding from the green menace?” Russel whispers.

Cyborg nods.

“Come in, I’ll cover for you.”

Cyborg ducks under his arm, scampers into his room, and tucks herself into his closet.

Muffled, she can hear Murdoc from the hallway: “Have you seen Cyborg? I wanted to give her this.”

“I haven’t, sorry. I’ll keep an eye out for her. Maybe she’s with 2D?”

“Right, thanks.”

Russel shuts the door. “You can come out now.”

Cyborg crawls out from his pile of laundry.

“You can hang out in here for a bit, then I’ll sneak you downstairs to find 2D, how’s that?”

Cyborg nods. She’s always liked 2D. 2D is a familiar face she was happy to see. He was confused at first when he saw her-- eyebrows crinkled upward, mouth parted slightly to reveal his missing front teeth--but he was happy to see her too nonetheless. He’d always been gentle towards her, soft spoken, if a bit skittish. But since Russel’s warmed up to her, she’s grown to like him too.

Russel sits at his desk and opens his book. Cyborg looks over his shoulder and he angles the book towards her.

“I don’t know how interested you are in art history, but,” Russel says, pointing to the picture on the page. “This is  _ The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit _ by John Singer Sargent. It was commissioned by friends of the artist who wanted an unconventional portrait of their daughters. It’s unusual as a portrait because two of the girls are somewhat obscured in this dark, liminal background when the subject would normally be front-and-center. He was a master of lighting and contrast, capturing form with loose, confidant brushstrokes. See, when you look closely, how it’s not blended?”

Russel knows a lot of things. She absorbs everything he tells her, eager to be as smart as him, and he’s happy to have someone who’ll listen. 

Russel smiles. “You wanna read the book when I’m done with it?”

Cyborg nods, grinning back.

“Alright, I’ll try to read fast. In the meantime, let me see if I have another book for you to look at. Maybe someday you can teach  _ me  _ something.”

Cyborg claps her hands excitedly as he selects a book from his shelf. The cover is a strange desert, with melting clocks. She opens the book, flipping through the pages, each painting stranger than the last. She drinks them in with wide eyes.

“I figured surrealism would be interesting to look at. Weird things you’d never think of putting together, beautifully rendered as if they’ve always existed. Just be gentle with the pages, it’s a little old.”

Cyborg hugs the book to her chest. 

“I’m gonna get back to reading. You want me to find 2D?”

Cyborg nods again.

“Alright, wait here.”

Russel leaves. Cyborg sits on his bed, swinging her feet, and opens her book as she waits. Soon, Russel returns with two glasses.

“Okay, Murdoc is in the studio, so take the back stairs, cross through the kitchen, and you’ll find 2D on the balcony.” He hands Cyborg one of the glasses, the one with only ice. She’s found no satisfaction in eating or drinking, but she loves the feeling of chewing. “Thanks for spending time with me, sweethe--uh, kid.” He ruffles her hair and sends her off.

* * *

“Oi! How’s it ‘goin, little buddy?” 2D puts his paintbrush down and waves her over. “Whatcha got there?” 

Cyborg steps outside into the chilly afternoon air, holding up her book.

“Oh, cool! Russel’s always ‘tellin me about art history and stuff, but I just can’t get it to stick in my head. I don’t really look at history much, I loik to paint the stuff I see now.” 2D turns his easel to show Cyborg what he’s doing. He’s painting the view from the balcony, with a slate-blue English sky. “You wanna paint wif me?”

2D reaches into the plastic grocery bag beside him and pulls out a smaller canvas and three brushes. “I’ll get you a paper plate so you can use your own colors, I’ll be roight back.”

Cyborg opens her book, turning the pages slowly, looking at each page with consideration until 2D returns. He squeezes a small puddle of paint from each bottle onto the plate.

“If you need more, just ask and I’ll do it for you, alroight?”

Cyborg takes a seat on the ground, legs crossed. She sets her book down, open to a picture of a man with a large, green apple obscuring his face. She picks up a paintbrush and soaks it generously in blue, before moving the book further away, placing a closed bottle of paint on it to weigh it down against the wind.

“The way I go about it, I try not to get too focused on ‘workin the details before I get to the rest of it. I start out real messy-loik and fix it later. It might not look loik much at first, but it turns into ‘somefin pretty in the end.”

Cyborg looks at the blank canvas for a while, holding her brush tentatively, hesitating on where to start.

2D, as if reading her mind, says “don’t think too hard about the first stroke, just go for it.”

Cyborg nods, and swipes the brush across the canvas. 

“See? It’s ‘freein.”

Cyborg smiles, and slathers the paint around, careful not to get any on the book.

“I fink my favorite fings to paint are dogs ‘n landscapes. Landscapes are kinda easy in some ways ‘cos you don’t gotta be too precise. I’m too scared to do interiors. Too many angles. Plus if I’m ‘doin an interior, you gotta paint inside, and I’m afraid of ‘gettin paint on the floor. If you loik ‘paintin, I can get you your own paints and brushes.”

Cyborg doesn’t mind letting 2D babble. It’s not like she can fill the silence. It’s fun to learn from Russel, but it’s also nice to wind down and let 2D chatter on about whatever crosses his mind. That, plus the smooth feeling of paint gliding across paint and the satisfying mixing of colors (without worrying about the details as 2D advised), it was easy to let everything else slip away. She’d almost forgotten about Murdoc until she heard his scratchy fingernails rapping on the glass door.

“Can I steal her for a moment, 2D?”

“Uh, yeah, as long as she—“

“Oi, love! I got ‘somethin for ya!”

Cyborg scrunches her nose at him as he thrusts the present towards her.

“Here, I got you one of your own. It might need some tuning, but with the way you can play I know you can get some great sound to come out of it!”

Cyborg wipes her paint-smeared hands on her pants and takes the guitar from him. She looks at it blankly.

“You like it? I thought the black and red looked smashing.”

Cyborg sets the guitar aside, sits back down, and continues painting.

Murdoc’s face falls. “She doesn’t even like it.”

“I’m sure she appreciates it, she’s just focused on ‘somefin else.”

“2D, can I talk to you inside?”

“What’d I do?”

“Nothing. Just come here.”

2D steps inside and Murdoc slides the door shut.

“She hates me. I don’t get it. I’m nothing but nice to her! I never tell her no, I never get angry at her, I give her gifts, and what do I get? Nothing! I got her that beautiful bloody guitar and she’d rather go back to finger painting!”

“Maybe she doesn’t wanna play.”

“Doesn’t want to play? It’s what she’s programmed for! She’s hard wired to shred!”

“Just ‘cos you’re good at ‘somefin doesn’t mean you loik ‘doin it,” 2D says. “You’re great at ‘fixin toilets, doesn’t mean it’s your favorite fing to do.”

“But I got her other great things! Jackets, video games, platform boots, stuffed animals, all things she’d like!”

“Murdoc, those are fings  _ Noodle _ loiks. She’s not Noodle.”

“Then what does she want?”

“Have you tried ‘askin her what she wants?”

“How? She can’t talk!”

“You ‘jus gotta do stuff wif her and figure out wot she’s interested in.”

“I do! I try playing bass with her and…” Murdoc trails off, losing faith in his own argument.

“Yeah, Murdoc, that’s what  _ you _ loik to do. But you can’t make her loik the fings you loik. It’s like uh, wot’s that ‘sayin? ‘Doin the same fing over and over again and ‘expectin different results is insanity? I would know. I keep ‘puttin hot dogs in the microwave for a minute ‘n a half ‘finkin maybe they won’t explode this time, but they always do.  _ That’s _ insanity.”

“That’s you doing that? Russel keeps blaming me because you’re a vegetarian! What the hell do you keep doing it for?”

“Exactly. It makes no sense to keep ‘doin the same thing over and over if it’s not working. That’s why you gotta think about what  _ she _ wants, not what  _ you _ want.”

“I’ve lost interest in the kid, 2D, I wanna know why you’re blowing up hot dogs in the microwave.”

“Hold on, lemme get my iPad, I got an idea!”

2D runs upstairs on a mission, leaving Murdoc behind with Cyborg still invested in her painting. 

“2D! You expect me to clean your shit up? What am I supposed to do with her? She doesn’t listen to me!” Murdoc crosses his arms and looks over at Cyborg. Her painting is starting to resemble something. Of course, it doesn’t look quite like the picture she’s copying, and there’s not much art in copying someone else’s ideas, is there? But, nonetheless, he can tell what she’s trying to make. For a first try, it’s not bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Merry Christmas and hail Santa everybody! I'll be posting a Christmas one-shot this weekend  
> -I had to take a hiatus last week to catch up on writing this fic, but I'm happy with this chapter. We're getting close to the end, I think :3c  
> -We got a glimpse of Cyborg in The Lost Chord so that's fun. I really liked the video, I think they ended on their best work with these "episodes."  
> -Anyway uhhhhh I like writing Cyborg, hope y'all enjoy <3  
> -Plan Z!! https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	18. Perfect for Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle and Miku pick out clothes for each other to try on while they talk about what their future holds.

Noodle slides the dressing room curtain open to reveal the outfit Miku had picked out for her: Blue, red, and pink striped bell-bottoms, a leather tank top, and a pink, knitted shawl that looks like a skinned muppet.

“Oh, this is everything,” Noodle says, posing against the doorframe.

“I thought you’d love that shawl,” Miku says, beaming from her spot on the bench. “I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how you’re supposed to wear it, but I figured you’d decipher it.”

Noodle faces the mirror to adjust the straps on her top. “Everything you picked out is so cool. I feel like I didn’t do as good a job finding things for you. I have terrible taste. My band treats Spirit Halloween like Homesense.”

“Your taste is  _ far _ from terrible. You really can pull off anything.”

“I know,” Noodle says, tossing her hair.

“Go on, try this last thing on. I wanna see it on you ‘cuz I never see you in dresses.”

Miku holds out the powder blue, sequined fabric draped over her arm.

“You don’t think I’m girly enough?” Noodle says, taking it.

“Of course not, I just think it’d be pretty.”

“It’s okay, you’d be right. I’m probably the second butchest person in my band.”

“Who’s first? Russel? Murdoc?”

“Scratch that,  _ I _ am,” Noodle says, closing the curtain. She hangs up the dress before slipping the shrug off her shoulders. The dress is on the shorter side, with spaghetti straps and a draped, open back. Would make a great New Year’s dress.

“I’d been meaning to ask you,” Miku says.

“Oh God, what’d I do?”

“Nothing like that, don’t worry. It’s just about future plans. Cuz I really like you, and I wanted you to be a part of them.”

Noodle folds the pants slowly as she listens. “So what are you asking me?”

“I’m planning on moving back to Japan. Not immediately, I don’t know when, but at some point. You don’t have to decide right away, but I wanted you to know about it so you have time to think.”

Noodle pauses as she’s taking the dress off the hanger. “You want me to come with you?”

“I sure would like you to. But I understand that’s a lot to spring on you. Just figured I’d propose it.”

Noodle looks down at the dress in her hands, running her fingers up and down the scaly sequins. “Of course I wanna go with you, Blue. I’d do anything just to be near you. But I’ve never been in a real relationship before. Never even gotten close. I feel like I missed out on an entire phase of my life and I’m late to this party where everyone knows what’s going on and I don’t. If I go with you, I want it to be because I know I love  _ you _ , not just because I’m excited that I’m feeling like a teenager for the first time. ‘Cuz I’d drop everything and come with you. And that scares me. I can’t promise you anything when I can’t think clearly about you.”

Miku giggles. “I’m flattered that I have that effect on you. But you don’t have to worry about it right now. It wouldn’t be for another year or so. I wouldn’t ask you to make a decision like that on a dime. Especially with your band and all.”

Noodle’s face flushes.  _ Of course not. No reason to get all mushy about it. God, I sound like a twit. _

“Put the dress on, Nood. I wanna see it.”

Noodle slips the dress over her head and tugs at it until it falls properly. She takes a look in the mirror. It’s a smashing dress. She opens the curtain and Miku’s face lights up.

“It looks  _ so _ pretty!”

“I can dig it,” Noodle says, smiling and modeling.

“Hold on, there’s a zipper on the back. Let me get it for you. Turn around.” 

Noodle can feel Miku’s soft hand brush her bare shoulder blade as she holds the fabric in place, then the other hand pulling the zipper from the small of her back up her spine. Miku twists the straps with her graceful fingers until they’re straightened out.

“Oh, I just realized, you know what would go great with this color?” Miku unclasps the thin, gold chain from her neck. She reaches around Noodle, placing the necklace over her collarbones-- it’s warm from her skin, a welcome, small relief from the brisk air of the boutique. The turquoise gem sits politely above the neckline. It’s a delicate necklace, much more delicate than Noodle would ever pick out for herself.

“What do you think?” Miku asks.

Noodle touches the turquoise on the necklace. “It’s lovely.”

“If you get it, we’ll have to go somewhere nice later.”

“I’d wear it to the grocery store,” Noodle says.

“I mean, you look amazing in everything,” Miku says. She stands on her tiptoes, steadying herself with her hands on Noodle’s shoulders, and plants a kiss on her cheek. Noodle reaches up and hugs Miku’s head against her own.

“You know, even if what we have is  _ just for now _ , it’s okay,” Miku says. “I’m not worried about the future. I like being with you just as we are right now.”

Noodle smiles into Miku’s hair. “I don’t wanna go home on Sunday, I’m having too much fun here.”

“I’m sure your bandmates miss you.”

“Murdoc’s probably chewed up the couch by now. Who knows if anyone’s changed his newspaper since I left?”

Miku laughs. “Come on, it’s my turn to try stuff on.”

“Oh boy, I can’t wait for you to see the cowgirl ensemble I put together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Happy New Year, my resolution is to bite politicians and suck the Coronavirus vaccine out of their blood like an antibody vampire :)  
> -Sorry I'm posting late, it's been very busy. Hopefully I'll have more time to get these chapters done ahead of time before classes start  
> -I haven't been able to finish that Christmas one-shot I promised, is two weeks into January too late to post it?  
> -Anyway I love you lesbians hope you like it :)  
> -Plan Z!! https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	19. Noffin's Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle calls 2D to see how things are going back home

Is it weird to like the smell of pool? Murdoc, 2D, and Russel hate it-- that it burns, it gives him a migraine, or it simultaneously smells sickeningly sanitary yet germy and grimy. Noodle likes the liminality of the hotel pool with its hollow, lonely echo. Great acoustics. It’s disappointing that they always close at 10:00. She’d love to watch the sun come up through the skylights, floating on her back with the water lapping in her ears. For now, it’s quiet, and a perfect place for a private phone call.

Noodle kicks her slipper off, tries to catch it back on her foot, misses, slips it back on, and kicks it off again and again until 2D picks up.

“Two-deeeeeee!”

“New-dooooool!”

“Twooooo-deeeeeee!”

“New-doooooooool!”

“How are you doing?”

“Uh, good! ‘Havin fun?”

“Yeah, we went shopping in Stockholm today, then got dinner, now we’re just vibing back at the hotel. The buildings here are beautiful. It looks like a Christmas card. You’d have fun painting them.”

“Oi, I just finished a lovely view of London. But I started ‘workin on it in the early afternoon, and then the sun started ‘settin, but I already made the sky grey, and I realized I ‘shoulda just waited and painted the sunset.”

“Everyone paints the sunset. It’s more subversive to paint the sky when it looks like shit. Like the realist painters. Capturing the truth of the working man.”

“It was a nice orange though.”

Noodle chuckles. She flips her slipper off once again, and it lands slightly out of reach. She leans over to fetch it. “You’ll have to show me when I get back. Have the boys behaved?”

“Uh,” 2D considers. What would Noodle constitute as behaving? Technically, nothing’s wrong. But he can’t say it’s normal. He looks at the sleeping robot girl on the couch beside him-- at least, whatever constitutes as sleeping for a robot. She doesn’t rouse at his voice. 2D pulls a blanket over her shoulders. She might not get cold, but it feels right to do so anyway. It’s what he’d do for anyone else. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

“Murdoc seemed weird about me leaving, is he still like that?”

2D bites his thumbnail. It’s still unsettling that Cyborg doesn’t breathe, but she looks much more natural on the couch than plugged into a power strip in a corner. “He’s found things to distract himself.”

“It’s just unusual for him. I don’t know what he’s so anxious about,” Noodle drags her finger through the steam on the window behind her. The sky is vantablack. The snow outside the window fades from white to blue to nothing, like an ocean drop-off. Even from the safety of a humid room with a styrofoam cup of complimentary coffee, it’s creepy. It almost feels like an act of defiance to sit so close to the glass, so visible, when who knows what could be just out of sight? Are there yetis in Sweden? It might be fun to spot a yeti.

“Dunno. Who knows what he’s ‘wiggin out about day-to-day?” 2D says. “Regular basket case.”

Noodle exhales a brief laugh through her nose. She wraps her hand around her coffee--not to drink it, just to warm her fingers. “Hey, 2D?”

“Yeah?”

“What would you be doing if you weren’t in the band?”

2D sticks his thumb in his mouth and scrunches his eyebrows. It’s something he’s thought about before, but it’s not a thought he entertains. No use dwelling on something that didn’t happen. “Dunno. Probably still ‘workin at the music store. Or some other job of the sort. I never really had a plan and didn’t mind that kinda work.”

“Do you think you’d’ve been happy doing it?”

“Dunno. I don’t fink I woulda been sad about it. You know, loik, not ‘havin the band. Wouldn’t’a missed ‘somefin I never had.”

“Alright. Let’s say, in the future, you had the chance to do something else. Would you ever do it? Or would you miss the band too much?”

“Of course I’d miss the band,” 2D says. “I’ve known you guys half my loif.”

“But what if it was something that sounds like it’ll be really good? Something you wouldn’t wanna miss out on?”

“Why are you ‘askin?” 2D says. “Is this about me or ‘somefin else?”

“I’m not going anywhere, it’s nothing like that,” Noodle says. “I’m just asking.”

2D considers. “As long as we’re not in the middle of ‘somefin important, I fink I’d take the chance.”

“You wouldn’t be afraid of leaving the band?”

“Fink about all the times we’ve been separated. Any one of those times, youda fought we were completely donezo. But we always find our way back to each other. Either there’s some kinda power in the universe that ties us together, or we just ‘oughta get our heads examined.”

Noodle smiles. “I think we ‘oughta get our heads examined.”

“Wot if they X-rayed my skull and found a hamster on a wheel inside?”

“Oh, come on, 2D, you’re running on something smarter than a hamster.”

“Loik a rat! Rats are very smart. You know, I coulda been an astrop… astrophis-is… a rocket scientist if someone just rewarded me ‘wif cheese or grapes more often.”

Noodle laughs, and the blue-tiled walls laugh with her. Her laugh trails off though, as she considers her next question. “I have another question, but I don’t wanna be a wet blanket.”

“Shoot,” 2D says.

Noodle sighs, fiddles with the tie on her hotel robe. “How do you forgive him?”

“Who?” 2D asks, knowing  _ who _ .

“You know who. After everything. You know now that you don’t have to rely on him for anything. In fact, everything got better for you whenever he was gone.”

“I wouldn’t say I  _ forgive  _ him. I guess it’s just not in my nature to be angry.”

“But you don’t even have to be angry. You could just be free to do whatever you want and you don’t owe it to anyone to tolerate the way they treat you. We’re adults, 2D. We don’t have to do anything for anyone’s sake but our own.”

“I dunno, Noodle. There’s a lot of reasons. And there’s a lot of things I do that I don’t know the reason for. But I’m okay roight now. I can handle myself. You trust me to know what’s best for me, roight?”

“I do,” Noodle says, chewing her lip.

“And everything’s going better now, innit?”

“I know it sounds terrible to think, but it almost makes it harder. I feel like we’re mending things and that he actually  _ does _ care about me beyond his own self-interest, but at the cost of forgetting all the terrible things he’s put us through. He really is like a dad to me. For better or for worse. I want to be able to give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that he’s trying, but I don’t want to pretend everything’s okay. Especially because you got the worst of it. I don’t want to forgive him for things I don’t have the right to forgive him for. Sometimes I start to feel like I made it up, or that it wasn’t that bad. Which is easy for me to believe ‘cuz I was always his favorite. But I remember how he treated you and I just feel all kinds of shitty again.”

2D nods his head, even though she can’t see him. “Yeah. Believe me, I know.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I really don’t know, Miss Lady. If I had the answers, I’d give ‘em to you, but noffin’s that easy.” 2D looks over at Cyborg. “I find myself of two minds about a lotta fings.”

“I just feel bad I didn’t do more to stop it. He’d listen to me, and I could’ve made him stop if I’d just did a better job of standing up for you--”

“Noodle. I’m ‘stoppin you roight there.”

Noodle clams up, jarred by the seriousness in his voice.

“You were a child. We were grown men. There’s absolutely  _ noffing _ that’s your fault or your responsibility when it comes to  _ his _ behavior. Or me, or Russel’s. But you know, namely, Murdoc’s. You were not, are not, and will never be responsible for the shitty fings someone else does to  _ you  _ or  _ anyone _ . You don’t have to forgive him if you don’t fink you should, but you can’t blame yourself. I never want you to feel responsible for fings that happened to  _ me _ .”

“Alright. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“It means a lot hearing it from you.”

2D smiles. Noodle can hear it in his tone when he says: “I’m smarter than people give me credit for. Even if I am just parroting my therapist.”

“I know you are,” Noodle says. “I figured you’d be the best person to talk to about all this. I’d talk to Russel, but I think it makes him sad. I don’t want him to feel guilty when I don’t feel okay.”

“You also don’t have to bury your feelings for the sake of ‘makin other people feel better. Goes for him too. Maybe double. It could do him some good to frow ‘somefin down the stairs. Blow up some hot dogs in the microwave. If he keeps ‘carin so much about other people, he’s gonna lose it. That’s why I’m making my New Years’ resolutions for evil.”

Noodle laughs again, rubbing her eye with her palm. “God, I miss you, 2D.”

“I miss you too, Miss Lady,” 2D says. He wonders if he should tell Noodle about Cyborg, but decides against it. He doesn’t want to give her something else to worry about. Besides, it was Murdoc’s idea, it should be  _ his  _ problem. He rubs Cyborg’s arm gingerly.

“Hey, do you remember those commercials they used to play at the movie ‘feater before the previews, where it told you to turn off your phone, and you could loik, text a number and they’d show you what your phone ‘dreamed’ about?”

Noodle sips her coffee. “Shit, Dee, you just unearthed something in my brain. Yeah, I remember those. Did you ever do it?”

“No. I was always curious about ‘em, but I always forgot once the movie was over.”

“I wonder if you can still do that. Though, I don’t think I’ve seen that before a movie in a long time.”

“Me ‘neifer. Just remembered it, is all.”

“We should see a movie again soon. We haven’t done it in a while.”

“Yeah. See if there’s any horror movies that look ‘interestin.”

Noodle kicks her slipper off again, only this time it spirals out of control and flops into the pool.

“Shit!”

“Wot?”

“Just kicked my slipper into the pool,” Noodle says, fishing it out of the water.

“Now what’d you do such a silly fing for?”

“I don’t know, what’s it to ya?” Noodle says. She holds her phone against her ear with her shoulder as she wrings out the soggy slipper. “I gotta go anyway, the pool’s gonna close soon.”

“Alroight, g’noight, Noods.”

“Night, 2D.”

Noodle hangs up, and 2D tucks his phone in his shirt pocket. He gets up slowly, as not to bother Cyborg. He stretches, tousles Cyborg’s hair, and wonders if she dreams about Plastic Beach like he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I think 2D is smarter than everyone gives him credit for  
> -I also FINALLY got my almanac and it's pretty good, I liked that we got a little more depth from Russel and some of the new art in it is really cool. And my Murdoc cosplay made it in!! Yeah babey!!  
> -I have the rest of the fic outlined and I'm very excited about it, we're *approaching* the end, but there are still several chapters to go  
> -Does anyone else remember the movie theatre thing? The commercial that tells you to turn off your phone, and you could text "DREAM" to a number and see your phone's "dream?" Has anyone ever done it? This is like the only article I could find that talked about it https://www.marketingdive.com/ex/mobilemarketer/cms/news/content/12918.html


	20. A Girl Like a Loaded Shotgun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle returns from her trip with Miku to an unexpected houseguest

Cyborg unleashes a flurry of bullets into the wall behind Noodle before she can even utter a “ _ Hello, you filthy animals! _ ” Noodle ducks for cover behind her suitcases as Russel and Murdoc frantically try to restrain the robot.

“No! No! We talked about this! No guns!” Murdoc says, wrenching the shotgun-arm from its socket to stop the hailstorm. This doesn’t stop Cyborg from kicking and squirming, her mouth opening and closing in a silent tantrum. Russel tries his best to hold her as she flails around.

“Don’t let her bite you, she won’t unclamp easily,” Murdoc says.

“Welcome home, Noodle,” 2D says dryly from his spot on the couch, sipping a can of ginger ale like he’d been expecting this turn of events for a while.

“What the hell is going on?” Noodle demands, hesitantly crawling out from her luggage barricade.

“Why don’t you tell her, Murdoc?” 2D says.

“Russ, would you take her to the other room to calm down?”

“I told you you’d be in a lot of trouble, Muds,” Russel says. “Hi, Noodle. I’ll come back in and give you a hug in a minute.” He picks up the squirming robot and carries her out of the room. 

“What the hell is she doing here? And why didn’t anybody tell me? You guys just let me walk into a fucking warzone!”

“I tried to prepare her, reinforce good behavior, encourage her to use her words when she’s upset, we watched the Iron Giant--” Murdoc says. “We weren’t gonna have her in the room when you got here, but she ran downstairs when she heard the doorbell.” He tries to give Noodle a welcoming smile and he holds open his arms for a hug. “But it’s great to have you back!”

Noodle doesn’t step in for a hug. Instead, she looks at him with icy eyes and a tight mouth. “I asked why she’s here.” She looks over Murdoc’s shoulder at 2D. “And why you didn’t tell me.”

“It was all Murdoc’s idea,  _ he’s _ gotta take responsibility,” 2D says.

“Oh, you were going to wait for Murdoc to take responsibility for his actions? Miracles happen every day, don’t they?” Noodle says. She crosses her arms.

“Can we take your bags?” Murdoc asks, sheepishly.

“Yeah. You can,” Noodle says. She turns her back to him and heads for the stairs.

“Wait, Noodle!” Murdoc says, putting his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I didn’t know how to explain it.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “I was ‘feelin bad for her. I was ‘thinkin about how you were little, and I was missing it. And I figured it’d be nice to give her another chance at being a kid. It’s not about replacing you or anything.”

“Well, I’m here now. You could’ve just gotten me a giant teddy bear or something if you were feeling so goddamn sentimental. You can turn her off now.”

“We can’t,” Murdoc says.

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“She’s self-aware,” 2D says. “It’d be cruel to shut her down again.”

“Great. So this was a thoughtfully considered joint decision, thoroughly discussed among everyone in the band until we came to a unanimous agreement? Oh? What’s that? It was another selfish, impulsive decision by Murdoc that’s now everyone else’s problem? What else is new?”

“I know! I’m sorry! I already got the lecture from everyone else and I can’t fix it!” Murdoc says. “But I didn’t do it to be an arsehole! I wanted to give her a second chance! I’m sorry I didn’t ask the rest of you, even though  _ I _ made her and I’m  _ trying _ to be responsible for her! I can’t even make her happy, no matter what I do!”

“Then why don’t you go help Russ?” 2D says. “I’ll talk to Noodle.”

“Fine,” Murdoc says. He storms off to the kitchen, leaving 2D alone with Noodle.

2D motions for Noodle to sit next to him. She does, but keeps her arms crossed and her posture stiff.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” 2D says. “I didn’t know how either. ‘Cos trufully,  _ I  _ don’t know what Murdoc was ‘finkin. I fink he regrets not ‘bein a very good guardian when you were littol. And he dealt wif it in a schtewpid, impulsive way.”

“I wouldn’t have even been mad about it if he’d just talked to me. He just  _ does _ things and expects it to be okay with everyone else.”

“I fink he can’t put himself in other people’s shoes,” 2D says. “It’s not that he can’t  _ care _ about what other people want, it’s that he doesn’t  _ understand _ what other people want.”

“I know that. And I know he probably can’t help it, but he’s  _ so _ infuriating. Just when I think he’s doing okay, he does something so  _ stupid _ ,” Noodle puts her face in her hands. “I feel like such an idiot every time I put faith in him.”

2D rubs her back. “I know. And unfortunately, this isn’t one we can undo. We’re ‘jus gonna have to roll wif it. Like we always do. We’ve had to adapt to much worse.”

“I just wanted to come back and have things be normal,” Noodle says.

“I know,” 2D offers her a sip of his ginger ale and she declines, shaking her head. 2D takes a sip. “I know you didn’t get to know her, and I know you didn’t get a good first  _ or _ second impression, but she’s a good kid. And she’s not a duplicate of you either. She’s got her own personality. She doesn’t even like playing the guitar, so you don’t have to worry about competition.”

Noodle gives him a doubtful side-eye from behind her fingers. 2D sighs and scratches the back of his head.

“I promise she’s really not bad. We’re all built with a loaded shotgun inside us, hers just happens to fire live rounds. Try to get along wif her. For my sake.”

“Question is, can she be in the same room as me without trying to kill me?”

“We’re working on it, love,” 2D says.

_ “ARRRGH CHRISTSAKE, KID!” _

_ “Careful Muds, she bites.” _

“Maybe you can bond over a common enemy,” 2D says. “You know wot? How about we go to the pub and give you a proper homecoming?”

Noodle looks at her Hello Kitty watch. “11 A.M.’s not too early to drink. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The storylines!! They're converging!!!  
> -Thank you for all the lovely responses to my fic, I'm really happy that the self-indulgent passion project I'm neglecting my comic for is something people actually enjoy  
> -I'm hoping to finish writing the rest of the chapters before school starts up again for me, wish me luck!  
> -It's been a hot second since I've self-promoted, so read my comic while you wait for the next update https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


	21. Just Like the Old Days, but Cyborg's Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle's not used to sharing attention with Cyborg.

“Mind if I join you out here?” Noodle asks.

2D doesn’t turn his attention away from his painting, but she could tell he’s smiled. “Not at all.”

“Where’s the Cyborg?”

“She’s with Russel at the moment. He said he’d entertain her and ‘give me a moment’s peace.’ Not like she’s rowdy or ‘anyfin, though.”

For a long time, when 2D couldn’t be found anywhere in Kong, it meant he was locked away in his room, hurting from his migraines, a particularly bad walloping from Murdoc, and/or perpetually woozy from a slurry of pills. It’s nice to find him here now. The balcony is cool, windy enough to toy with 2D’s blue hair but not strong enough to blow his canvas over. Noodle pulls up a chair next to him, sets two mugs down, and pulls her blanket closer around her shoulders. She watches 2D manipulate orange paint around the skyline. He handles the brush roughly, but with intent.

“You might wanna be gentler on the brush, you’re gonna ruin the bristles if you smash them about,” Noodle critiques. “But it’s turning out lovely. I like the clouds.”

“The bristles can handle a little roughing up if it means the thing turns out how I loik it,” 2D says.

“You’re the artist,” Noodle says, shrugging. “What are you gonna do with all them? Your paintings?”

“Dunno yet. I like 'em ‘hangin in my room. Makes me feel like a collector or somefink,” 2D says. “I don’t wanna make money off ‘em.”

“I get that,” Noodle says, propping her chin in her hand. She lets the comfortable silence sit between them as she observes like a butterfly. 2D wears his age gracefully. He may be older now, with a creased brow and a crinkle to his eyelids, but the pretty-boy Murdoc “inducted” into the band all those years ago never left. He’s doing better than ever and it’s clear just looking at him. His hands don’t shake from withdrawal, his face is pink with life, and the only bruises he bears are faded hickeys on his neck she won’t ask about. It almost makes her forget the gaunt, dark-eyed, zombie of a boy he used to be.

But despite how poorly he took care of himself at the time, he never neglected Noodle, offering her the food he never finished, listening to her babble with full attention even though she talked a mile a minute and his thoughts moved a mile an hour. Though he might not have always understood what she was saying, especially early on, they always seemed to understand each other intuitively. Even after all the time they’d spent apart, that never seemed to change.

“You ‘doin alright, love?” 2D asks.

“Just been stuck in my head is all,” Noodle says, rubbing her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. 

“Would be nice to be able to take the little voice out and put it somewhere else for a change,” 2D says. “Gets too loud in there sometimes, dunnit?”

“Yeah. It does. Especially when there’s several, all yelling different things at the same time.”

“Mine’s got an echo,” 2D says. “From all the space.”

“Oh, come on, Dee, don’t talk about yourself like that.”

“Just a joke, Miss Lady,” 2D says, glancing at her with a smile. He lets the quiet hang between them a little longer before saying “What are all those voices yelling about? If you don’t want to share, that’s okay too.”

Noodle sighs. “I wore my new shoes all day and no one even asked me how fast I can run in them. This is bullshit.”

“Well, how fast can you run in them?”

Noodle looks down at the sparkly, green, platform boots on her feet. “Not that fast, actually.”

2D scratches his cheek, leaving an orange crescent moon of paint under his eye. “You know, I wish it was easier to find size thirteen light-up shoes. I looked online. You can get ‘em, but I don’t loik the style of any of ‘em. I’ll have to ask Snoop Dogg where he got his, if he answers my emails.”

“You got paint on your face,” Noodle says. 

“Where?” 2D asks, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand, smearing an even bigger streak of blue across his face. “Did I get it?”

“Ehh, you can get it later,” Noodle says. She starts giggling. “Oh my god, it reminded me of this. Remember that time Murdoc and I drew on you and Russ’s faces while you slept?”

“There’s been a number of times I’ve woken up wif cocks on my face,” 2D says. He snaps his head towards Noodle and jabs his paintbrush in her direction. “Drawn!  _ Drawn _ on my face!”

Noodle laughs harder. “And when Russ told you, you tried to look up at your own forehead!” Noodle smacks her hand on the arm of the chair and throws her head back. “Ohh god, what did we draw again?”

“I don’t remember, I can’t see my own face. God, Noodle.”

Noodle pushes her hair back and crosses her legs, resting her elbow on her thigh. “We should see a movie, what do you think?”

“Yeah, sounds good to me,” 2D says.

Noodle and 2D startle at the sound of fingers rapping on the glass door. They turn to see Cyborg on the other side, holding 2D’s iPad under her arm. She waves, but only to 2D. He opens the door for her. 

“‘Ello, love, how’s it going?”

Cyborg picks up the iPad and tap tap taps, summoning a robotic female voice: “ _ New necklace from Russel. _ ” Cyborg holds up the necklace around her neck: a rubbery, plastic, blue star, hanging from a black string.

“Oh! I loik it!” 2D says, bending over with his hands on his knees to get a closer look. “That one of the ones meant to chew on? Probably better for your teeth than ‘chewin on ice.”

Noodle leans over to look as well, but Cyborg lets the necklace fall back into place, almost passive-aggressively. She starts tapping at the iPad again. “ _ New drawings come see. _ ”

“I’d love to, kiddo, just gimme a second. I’m ‘talkin to Noodle.”

Cyborg scrunches her brows.  _ Taptaptaptaptap _ . “ _ Come see. _ ”

“You gotta be patient, love,” 2D says. Cyborg tugs on his arm. Not roughly--it seems she knows her own strength now.

“Alroight, I’ll come see, but real quick, okay?” He turns to Noodle. “I’ll be back, make sure my canvas doesn’t blow over.”

Noodle nods, her lips tight. As Cyborg drags 2D inside, Noodle realizes she’s been scowling. For what? So the Cyborg doesn’t like her. From what happened to her last time Noodle showed up, who could blame her? But it’s not like it’s her fault. Why should her life be flipped upside-down to accommodate the demands of a phony Noodle? She crosses her arms, sits back, and watches 2D’s canvas shudder in the wind, never falling, but almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Not a very exciting chapter but that's how it's gonna be this week  
> -School starts again for me this week so I'm probably gonna put the weekly chapter illustrations on pause. They take up a lot of my time to draw and they're not getting the same attention they were before. But 20 in a row's not bad. I'll draw them eventually, though.  
> -Depending on how busy I am I might take another hiatus next week, and if I do I'll post another chapter of "Calling the World from Isolation" instead  
> -I'm very tired atm read Plan Z, it's free and costs you nothing. I'm gonna make myself some cereal, y'all want anything?


	22. Hell Hath no Fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle accuses Cyborg of ripping her new dress out of spite, but the rest of the band isn't so sure it's so cut-and-dry.

“ _ MURDOOOOOC!” _

Russel looks up from the pancakes on the stove when he hears Noodle’s voice resonate throughout Kong. 

“Aw man, what’d that madman do this time?” Ace asks, a plate of Russel’s pancakes in front of him. He looks to Cyborg beside him, who doesn’t have pancakes, but enjoys crunching on the empty eggshells. “Ya get used to it, kid. That’s what they told me when ‘ol Murdoc got back from prison. They told me ‘Ace, you can stick around, but ya gotta get used to ‘em ‘hollerin.’ I says ‘ay, not my circus, not my monkeys.’”

Noodle storms into the kitchen, clutching a sparkly, blue piece of fabric in her fist.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Russel asks.

“Look what she did!” Noodle says, her face red and her knuckles white. She thrusts the dress in Russel’s face.

“What, what is it?” Murdoc stands almost sheepishly in the doorway, squinting like Noodle’s yelling had just jolted him awake, which it probably had. He’s not normally awake for another two hours.

Noodle unscrunches the dress and holds it up by the straps. “The zipper’s completely ripped off! She ruined it! I was gonna wear it for the album release party!”

“It’s not a big deal, love, you can find something else to wear by this weekend,” Murdoc says, holding up his hands like he’s dealing with an angry dog.

“No! Miku bought me this dress! This dress was special to me and she ruined it!”

“Ay, you don’t know if it was her who did it,” Ace interrupts. “Maybe Russel was ‘tryin it on?”

Noodle scowls at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“2D’s not up yet, and Russel made me pancakes.”

“Well butt out, will you? This has nothing to do with you! She ruined the dress because she hates me!”

“Here, let me see it,” Russel says, taking the dress from Noodle and inspecting the damage. “The zipper’s just ripped off the seam, it’s not broken and the fabric’s not ripped. I can fix it, it’s okay, sweetheart.”

“See, no big deal,” Murdoc says, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. She swats it away.

“It’s the principle of it! She found something that meant something to me and she tore it apart to spite me!”

Cyborg watches the feud with a blank expression. Noodle shoots her a glare and jabs a finger in her direction. “You know what you did! I don’t know if you’re playing dumb or if you just don’t feel guilty, but I don’t care! It’s not my fault Murdoc made you and threw you away, so if you wanna take up your issues with someone, break his shit, not mine!”

“Oi, it was probably an accident. She doesn’t know any better, it’s not her fault!” Murdoc says.

“You’re right, it’s yours.” Noodle says. 

“Come on, Noodle, be an adult about this,” Russel says as he flips the now-burning pancakes.

“No! I spent my whole childhood being an adult about things because  _ he _ couldn’t! Everything was going well for  _ once _ and what happens when I leave for three weeks? I have to make space in  _ my _ life for this freakish little robot because Murdoc can’t go five minutes without making a huge mess!” Noodle stomps past Murdoc back to the stairs, stopping to lean in close to his face. Murdoc leans back in escape, cornered against the doorway.

“Keep her away from my shit. And if anyone embarasses me at the party, I’ll dismember them with my bare hands.”

The room stays silent as a bug save for the sizzling of the stove and Noodle’s angry, retreating footsteps-- shockingly heavy for her tiny frame. Murdoc is the first to break the silence: “Right then.” He crosses his arms and sniffs like he’s been punched in the nose and is trying to brush it off. He looks down at Cyborg, who’s remained stiff as a board through the whole ordeal. “Stay out of her way, will ya? ‘Cos it all blows up in  _ my _ face.” His voice is low and flat-- a voice that comes out on the rare occasion when he’s picking his battles carefully. “I’m going back to bed.” With that, he turns, and leaves, back to the cave from whence he came. 

Ace breathes a sigh once Murdoc is out of sight. “Geez. Picked the wrong day to drop in for a visit. I kept thinking ‘at what point in this fight is it appropriate to take another bite of my pancakes?”

“Don’t get comfortable, Ace,” Russel says, clanking pans and dishes in the sink. “She’s the only one who can get away with talking to him like that.”

Ace pats Cyborg’s arm. “Ya seem like a good kid, I don’t think ya did it on purpose. Don’t let it get to ya.”

***

Russel busies his hands wrist-deep in the soapy water, mindlessly scrubbing dishes. They have a dishwasher, but he needs an activity that lets him turn his brain off. The dress has been fixed— it was a 15 minute job at most, and it’s been quiet the rest of the morning. Everyone’s off in their own corner somewhere, taking their tension with them. They’ll be over it by dinnertime, surely, but for now, it’s just Russel and the tug on his shirt that rouses him from his trance. He looks down to see Cyborg.

“‘Sup, kid? You wanna help me?” Russel hands her a towel. “You wanna dry them?”

Cyborg drags a step-stool closer to the counter and climbs onto it before taking the dish towel from him. It’s not as if she has trouble reaching the counter— she’s not that much smaller than Noodle— but Russel supposes it makes them more equal.

_ Noodle used to do that _ , Russel thinks. She was so small when she first showed up, she could barely reach anything on her own without climbing, propping herself up, or invoking 2D’s help. Even after she grew up, she still liked to pull up a stool to reach things. It’s a little more dignified than climbing on the counter or knocking things over (something Murdoc has yet to admit to himself).

Russel hands Cyborg a plate and she wipes it in circles, the cloth barely touching the ceramic as if it was fragile as a bird.

“You’re never gonna get it dry if you wipe it like that. Here, like this.” Russel demonstrates on the plate in his hand, rubbing it quickly and vigorously, then handing it to her to put away. “It’s okay, you won’t break them, they can take it.”

Cyborg nods and copies his motions, then puts the second plate in the cabinet.

“Good job,” Russel says.

They wash and dry the dishes with assembly-line efficiency, and Cyborg puts them away without casualties. 

“Thanks, kid,” Russel says, holding up his hand. Cyborg stares at it for a moment, unsure. She slowly raises her own hand to mirror him. He gives her a gentle high-five.

“Yeah, I’m sure Murdoc wasn’t really the type to give out high-fives back then,” Russel says. He folds the dish towel in half and tosses it over the edge of the sink.

“Hey, kid,” Russel says. He sure calls her “kid” a lot, but it just doesn’t feel right to call her “Cyborg.” It’s such a harsh set of letters. It’s too cold. Not a proper name for a young girl. “I just wanna ask you if you meant to rip Noodle’s dress.” At Cyborg’s alarmed expression, he adds “you’re not in trouble, I promise. I just wanna know.”

Cyborg shakes her head and steps back down to the floor. Russel nods.

“I didn’t think so. I tried to tell her earlier. I said if someone was gonna rip it on purpose, they’d have done more damage. But she was upset about it because it’s special to her. It’s all fixed now. She’ll be fine in a bit.”

Russel musses her hair. Cyborg’s not keen on hugs, but she’s not finicky about her hair. Maybe she’ll let Russel brush it, since it doesn’t seem like she’s doing it herself. Noodle never liked running a brush through her hair either. She’d screech dramatically at the slightest snag and would rather sleep with a helmet on than deal with her bed-head.

“I think she’s used to being the baby, even though she’s grown up now.” Russel smiles. “Though, we’ve let her be the baby for a while.” Russel crosses his arms and rubs his bicep. “There was a period of time where we should’ve let her keep being the baby, but she had to step up and take on responsibilities she shouldn’t have had to worry about. I guess we’d been making up for it ever since.”

Cyborg stares at him blankly. It seems like she’s listening, though who knows if she’s even comprehending what he’s talking about. It’s hard to know what concepts she already has a handle on, and what might as well be Greek. It’s nothing she needs to be concerned about, anyway. There’s no reason she should have to be burdened with a past that she had nothing to do with. God knows Russel’s aware.

“Do you like being called Cyborg?”

Cyborg shrugs.

“Would you be happier with a different name?”

Cyborg puts a finger to her chin and looks down at the floor as if miming thought.

“You don’t have to decide right now. Just figured maybe you’d prefer a name you like being called. A name means a lot. Plenty of people are given a name and it works just fine for them. But sometimes, when you’re trying to find yourself, it helps to give yourself a name that’s special because  _ you _ picked it. No one else gets to decide who you are except you.”

Cyborg tilts her head.

“You know what I mean?”

She nods slowly.

“You’re you, and there’s nothing better than that, ya dig?”

She digs. 

“Go wake up 2D, will you? Don’t be afraid to push him out of bed if you have to.”

Cyborg nods and scampers off to 2D’s room, wondering what she could be if not Cyborg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Question: did y'all discover this fic through the corresponding illustrations on my tumblr/instagram, through tags on AO3, or recommendation? I'm curious  
> -I just started classes and so far I like them so let's hope I don't lose my marbles this semester. I'm taking two film history classes and a screenwriting class so god knows they're all going to mush together in my little noggin  
> -Song Machine has been done for like a month and I was disappointed by most of the videos but I miss those bitches already  
> -Plan Z babey https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz/character-files --- let's hope that once I'm done with this fic I'll have time to actually work on it


	23. A Now Worth Remembering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miku finally meets Cyborg, much to Noodle's dismay

Miku’s used to Noodle’s strange house, with its winding layout and oddball characters hanging around, its seemingly vestigial rooms with eccentric decor. Screaming red walls, rock-n-roll tchotchkes, chairs of Addams family sensibilities, the smell of incense, some rather unplaceable smells-- they’re just as natural as someone else’s china cabinet. However, the uncanny robot Noodle in her girlfriend’s room is out of the ordinary.

“What are you doing in my room? Get out!” Noodle jabs a finger down the hallway like she could teleport her away if she pointed hard enough.

The robot turns her head and looks at them in surprise, but doesn’t leave nor does she drop the  _ Maneki-neko _ in her hand.

“What did I tell you about touching my shit?” Noodle storms into the room and swipes the plastic cat from the robot’s hands. Despite Noodle’s demeanor just short of smoke blowing out of her ears, the robot looks to Miku, head tilted curiously. She ignores Noodle’s demands of “get out!” and investigates the new blue person in the doorway. Miku looks at her with the same quizzicalness. What a strange being. The soft mechanical whir when she blinks, the absence of pink in her skin-- it’s not quite right, but she’s nothing to yell about. Miku smiles.

“Hi, I’m Miku. What’s your name?”

“That’s Cyborg. Just ignore her. She’s not supposed to be in here” Noodle huffs. “I’ll explain later. I’m sorry.” She storms back, pushing Cyborg outside. She calls down the hallway: “ _ Murdoc _ ! Dickhead! I  _ told _ you to keep her out of my  _ room _ !” before slamming the door.

“What’s wrong?” Miku asks.

Noodle puts the plastic cat down with annoyance. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention her before you got here. I didn’t even know where to begin, and she’s not even supposed to be here anyway. I’m sorry if she creeped you out.” She plops down on her bed.

“No, it’s fine,” Miku says. “My ex-girlfriend was a robot.” She takes a seat across from Noodle in a pink gamer chair. “But in all seriousness, that’s not the problem. Why in God’s name is it  _ you _ ?”

“To make a long story short, I was presumed dead after one of Murdoc’s stupid ideas went horribly wrong and he built the robot to replace me for the next album. I hadn’t seen her since I came back after Plastic Beach, but Murdoc brought her back for some fucking reason. And she hates me because she thinks I’m gonna replace her, even though  _ she _ showed up in  _ my  _ life.”

“Alright. Sure. I can buy that,” Miku says, nodding with a hint of  _ oh, this is more than I bargained for _ . “We don’t have to unpack all that right now if you don’t want to. But it doesn’t seem like she  _ hates _ you.”

“You don’t know that. She looks at me when I have two heads when I talk to her.”

“Well, maybe it’s ‘cuz you were practically yelling at her the moment you saw her.”

Noodle sits back and eyes Miku as though she’d been slighted. “What are you saying?”

“I didn’t like seeing you that way. She wasn’t doing anything. What was the big deal?”

“The other day, she ripped my dress! The one you got me!” Noodle says. “Besides, I shouldn’t have to move my life around for her when I didn’t ask her to be here!”

“How’d she rip it?”

“I don’t know, she was trying to put it on. But it’s the principle!”

“Maybe she’s trying to be like you,” Miku says.

Noodle rolls her eyes. “Please. When I first got here she’d throw a fit if someone mentioned us in the same sentence.”

“But maybe now she knows you’re not here to replace her. Maybe she’s trying to get to know you and you’re shutting her out.”

Noodle crosses her arms. “Before I left, they’d fuss over me like I was a child, and now I come back and I can’t have a normal conversation for a second before she shows up and demands all their attention.”

Miku smiles knowingly. “You’re used to being the baby. You didn’t realize it until you weren’t the baby anymore.”

Noodle scowls. “I’m  _ not _ . I’m fucking thirty, I’m a grown-ass woman.”

“You’re in a one-sided fight with a kid. What is this, high school?”

“I didn’t go to high school, I was in Hell.”

Miku sits beside Noodle on her bed. “I’m sorry. I gathered that you’ve probably been through a lot since you don’t like to talk about your past.”

“I mean I was literally in Hell. You know, the one with the River Styx?”

Miku doesn’t know how to respond. “Oh. Alright.”

Noodle runs her fingers through her choppy hair. “I guess you’re right about me not being the baby. I don’t know. In a way I’ll always be the baby since they pretty much raised me, but then there was a time where everything was falling apart and I felt like I had to hold it all together. When most girls were ignoring their book reports and snogging after school, I was traveling alone, producing an album, and coming to the realization that the people I knew as my whole world were, to understate it,  _ flawed _ .” She sighs and falls backwards into her rumpled sheets. “I don’t wanna air their dirty laundry to you, but it was bad at times. I guess they feel bad about it too, that I didn’t get much of a chance to be a kid.”

Miku lies down beside Noodle and takes her hand, stroking her knuckles with her thumb. Noodle continues.

“I used to be so smart. Or at least, I thought I was. I didn’t get to be around other kids very much. When I did, I thought I was better than them because I read philosophy books or some shit. I’m such an idiot now.”

“No, you’re not.”

Noodle gives a small laugh. “It’s okay. I don’t want to be smart anymore. I’m happier being stupid. I feel like chunks of my brain fell out and there’s room again. A lot of room. I think some important stuff fell out with it.” Noodle closes her eyes, resting her head against Miku’s. “I try to be grateful. I think it makes them sad when I’m unhappy. They take it personally. Well, not  _ all _ of them. But I know they’re trying and I don’t want them to feel bad. I don’t want them to feel like it’s their fault that I don’t remember a lot of things I feel like I used to remember.” Noodle buries her face in Miku’s silk hair. “Spent so much time trying to forget the bad stuff so I can try and be happy now, that the good stuff went too. I don’t want to forget. But it all sticks together.”

Miku brushes Noodle’s cheek with her finger. “You don’t have to fake it when you really need someone to listen. I’m sure they’d rather help you than cover it up for their sake. And if it’s really so bad you can’t, I’ll listen.”

Noodle nods slowly, Miku’s ponytail tickling her face as she moves her head. “I already missed the first ten years of my life. I got those memories back, but it doesn’t feel like it happened to me. It feels like a movie. A really long movie. And it wasn’t good either. I missed being a teenager. I can’t forget the rest of it. I can’t afford to. What would I have left?”

“You always have now. Now is just as valuable a time as any, it’s just not nostalgic yet. I’m want to make  _ now _ worth remembering.”

“But I still don’t want to forget.”

“Then tell me about it,” Miku says. “I know we came up here to like, kiss and stuff, but I want you to tell me all the things you want to remember. So you can keep them close. I’ll remember them for you if I have to.”

Noodle smiles. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -YES this is another chapter where Noodle talks about her feelings with another character for four pages and nothing happens, I can't afford therapy  
> -Sorry I'm posting this late I have a life you know. I went to Staples today.  
> -I also have an idea for a Russel and Del oneshot what do we think of that, boys?


	24. Snippits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle recollects pieces of her childhood with the band

_ Murdoc lets me sit in the passenger seat even though I can barely see over the dashboard. I grip my gas station root beer tightly as the car Tokyo Drifts around corners. Normally, I see 2D and Russel reaching for what Russel calls the “Oh Shit” handles on the roof, but I can’t reach them, plus it’s thrilling. We’ve always made it to point B in one piece, anyway. The telephone poles on the side of the road whizz by, faster when I focus my eyes on the trees, and slower when I look right at them. On longer rides, when my Gameboy dies, I imagine an antelope running across the metal barriers and Olympic-scaling the telephone crucifixes. There’s a TV show on Animal Planet that showed you what a person would have to look like to run as fast as an antelope. I wish I could run that fast, but I wouldn’t want to look like an antelope. _

_ A rumbling guitar riff starts stampeding through the radio speakers. “Aw yeah,” Murdoc says, cranking the volume. “Barracuda! Great band, Heart, lovely pair of birds. Think you could play that guitar bit?” _

_ I bend my ring and middle finger and raise my devil horns like Murdoc does on stage. “Hell yeah!” _

* * *

_ Our plane leaves early and we have to wake up at four in the morning. I get to wear my pajamas on the taxi ride. My little, fluffy backpack is equipped with a Gameboy, two beanie babies, an extra jumper, my English workbook, and scented markers. The sun is coming up as we wait to get on the plane, casting orange and pink through the big, glass windows. The seats aren’t very comfortable-- I can’t curl up without the plastic arm jutting into my back. 2D balls up his jacket and tucks it underneath my ribs. The smell of black coffee hits my nose as Russel pops the lid off his cup to dump in a sugar packet. Murdoc’s boots clack against the tile floor as he paces back and forth. Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. Russel tells him to sit, that he’s making him anxious with all this pacing, but I don’t mind. His steps are rhythmic, a gaudy metronome for the airport’s fuzzy wall of noise. _

* * *

_ I’m lying under the coffee table in the den, watching a Looney Tunes VHS. Duck season. Wabbit season! Duck season. Wabbit season! Wabbit season. Duck season, FIRE! Bang! The couch would be more comfortable, but I fit under the coffee table, so it seems just as reasonable a place to lay. _

* * *

_ It had been tolerably sprinkling all day, but the sky opened up halfway through the shopping trip, and so we make a run for it. My hands are freezing clutching the plastic shopping bag. The rain pummels my plastic hood and blurs my vision as I try to keep Murdoc’s olive bomber jacket in my sight. My sneaker splunks into a particularly deep puddle and soaks my pants. I screech and stop in my tracks.  _

_ “C’mon, love, can’t stop in the middle of the sidewalk,” Murdoc calls over his shoulder. _

_ “My shoe!” _

_ Murdoc jogs back. He crouches down, lifts me onto his back, and crooks his arms under my knees. I hold onto his shoulders. His dark hair is flat against his neck and forehead. _

_ “Hold on, but don’t strangle me.” _

_ As we take off again, the shopping bag in my fist pendulums into his chest with each footfall, but he doesn’t mention it.  _

* * *

_ I’d never seen real-life palm trees until L.A. It looks like a postcard from the car window-- a “Wish you were here!” landscape. It’s much, much hotter than England, and the sun follows the rental car around every turn. I squint at the sky through my pink, rhinestone sunglasses. The clouds are few and far between-- not a gloomy, gray mass. I can make out shapes. I point them out to 2D beside me, bony hip to bony hip in the backseat. Murdoc, on 2D’s opposite side, tries to sleep with his cheek propped on his knuckles, eyebrows furrowed and mouth curled in a discontented scowl. Russel makes vague, distant conversation with the driver, whose identity escapes me. The music coming through the stereo is old, a decade that precedes me by several generations. I can’t guess who picked it out-- might’ve been the driver’s choice, or a cassette stuck in there from a previous owner. _

_ “Bunny,” I say, pressing my finger to the window. _

_ “I fink it’s more loik a duck. Loik if the duck was lookin’ up.” _

* * *

_ Baseball must go on forever. The sky is purple now, the stars hidden by the blinding stadium lights. Russel explains the rules to me with his soft, deep voice as the game goes on, but they go in one ear and out the other. I can’t tell who’s winning, but every so often, everyone cheers or boos. Sometimes they start singing along to a song that plays when one of the teams does a good job. Russel tells me we’re rooting for the orange and blue team. I trust that he’s right-- he knows more about baseball than I do. He bought me a hot dog, popcorn, and a large lemonade, and even a foam finger I always see on TV. I ask him how long the game’s supposed to go on. _

_ “Believe me, sweetheart, it’s better than cricket. There’s been cricket games that have gone on for days. And they don’t have hot dogs.” _

_ I shiver. It’s chilly now that the sun is gone. _

_ “You cold?” Russel pulls one arm from his sleeve. He wraps half the jacket around me. I stick my arm through the sleeve and pull it tightly around me. I’m swimming in it. _

* * *

_ 2D turns up the volume on the TV to drown out the yelling coming from above. Neither of us mention it. We can’t make out the words and we don’t try to. The movie’s about giant ants, but I’m not too focused on the plot. We didn’t put too much thought into our movie selection, it was just the first one available to cover up the noise. I bury myself further into 2D’s side. 2D looks down at me with a half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Is not too scary for you, right?” _

_ I shake my head no. _

* * *

_ Murdoc trudges back up the hill with the plastic sled in tow. He throws it down in front of him, out of breath. _

_ “Right, I’m not trekking back up that hill again. Russ? How about you have a go?” _

_ “No thank you, I’m fine here.” Russel sips his hot chocolate from the comfort of a fabric camping chair at the top of the hill. _

_ “I’ll go again!” 2D takes his place behind me on the sled, trying to set himself down carefully so as not the set the sled in motion. The sled starts to tip forward, creeping downward. “Wait! Wait! My leg’s not in!” _

_ I let out a shriek as the sled circles around and tips over. I roll off and lay on my back for the theatrics of it, giggling into the white sky. _

_ “2D, you mantis! Look what you’ve done!” Murdoc jeers. _

_ 2D sits up and flings a handful of snow in Murdoc’s direction, misses, and hits Russel in the process. Murdoc laughs. _

_ “Oh really?” Russel puts his cup down, rolls a snowball in his fist, and throws it at Murdoc, hitting him in the shoulder. _

_ “Oi! I didn’t do nothing!” _

_ “You just make it so easy.” _

_ I pick up a handful of snow and throw it at Russel. It lands squarely in his face. _

_ “Ooooo, you’ve done it, Noods!” 2D says. _

_ I scramble to my feet and take off running, but the snow almost reaches my knees and I immediately stumble.  _

_ “Get over here!” _

_ I feel myself being lifted off the ground. Russel flings me over his shoulder. _

_ “Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” _

_ 2D flings another snowball at Russel’s back. _

_ Russel spins around and charges at 2D, picking him up by his waist and carrying him like a football. My eyes are squeezed shut and I’m laughing. I feel my body being tossed like a sack of flour into the safety of a snowbank. I feel the weight of 2D’s body land beside me like a tree branch. I sit up and watch Russel chase Murdoc, who’s struggling against the snow as I was. _

_ “Nononononono! No! Noooo! Russ! Russ!” _

_ Russel roars dramatically with a huge grin as he picks Murdoc up effortlessly. Murdoc kicks his feet like a cartoon mouse. _

_ “I surrender! You win! Don’t throw me!” _

_ Russel pitches him into the snowbank beside us. 2D howls at the sight of Murdoc flailing his limbs to get himself upright as the snow collapses underneath his bearings, and I laugh too. Murdoc eventually sits himself upright, but doesn’t laugh with us, instead shooting 2D a frigid glare that cuts 2D’s laugh like a mute button.  _

_ I’m suddenly painfully aware of the snow that snuck inside my mittens and down my sleeve, dripping into a miserable slush down my arm. _

* * *

_ I knock on Russel’s door because it’s half-past-two. He’s a heavy sleeper, sure, none of us particularly enjoy early mornings. Even I appreciate an extra hour in bed nowadays. But ever since we’ve all been back together again at Kong, he’s been sleeping later and later. When I was a kid, not long ago, I guess, but three years later feels like a long time, he’d get up to make pancakes on weekends. I can make them myself now, but it’s so boring waiting for everyone else to finally get up. _

_ “Door’s unlocked,” I hear, muffled, a voice still clogged with sleep. _

_ I open the door and poke my head in. The room is dark, clothes on the floor in an uncharacteristic “eh, I’ll pick it up later” fashion. The light sneaking through the slats in his blinds makes a barcode on his navy sheets. “It’s two-thirty, Russ, are you getting up soon?” _

_ Russel mumbles a response, but I can’t understand it and I take it as a “no.” I elect to tug on his arm like I would as a kid. _

_ “Come on! You can’t lay in bed all day like 2D and Murdoc! I’m all by myself!” _

_ Russel moans softly into his pillow. “You can get yourself ready, can’t you sweetheart? You can do it. You’re a big girl now.” _

_ “I’ve been ready.” _

_ “That’s good,” he says, his mind somewhere far away. “Go wake Dents and Muds. I’ll get up.” _

_ I sigh, dropping his arm. It hits the mattress limply like a dead fish. I turn and leave him be. As I close the door behind me, I look back. He stays in the same position, sideways on the bed, lying on his side with one arm stretched above his head like a swimmer. His ghostly white eyes stay open, though, but his gaze rests far beyond me as if I’m long gone. _

* * *

_ Murdoc and I sit in silence in the car. The sky is gray over the parking lot, and seagulls circle overhead like vultures in an urban desert. I don’t recall what we’re waiting for, but it can’t come fast enough. My English is fine yet it’s harder to talk than it was before. What am I so annoyed about all the time? This warzone home is nothing new. 2D and Russel are different now-- 2D wears his douchebag persona like an oversized coat, and Russel is here but that’s all there is to say. Murdoc hasn’t changed a bit since my sabbatical-- a return that felt like coming home to a sink full of days-old dishes, surprised they didn’t wash themselves. But I think he liked me more when I didn’t have my own ideas. I could pop him in the mouth every time he rolls his eyes when I make suggestions for the album,  _ my _ album, that I wrote all by myself. One would think he’d feel proud, maybe take credit for teaching me well. But he doesn’t say “good job,” instead we say nothing, the radio drowned out by the tense silence. Murdoc leans the seat back, eyes closed as if pretending to sleep is preferred to trying to talk to me. I lean my head against the frigid window. _

_ “Radio plays nothing but rubbish,” Murdoc says, eyes still closed. _

_ “Always has,” I mutter in performative agreement. _

_ “They should put me in charge of picking the tracks. I’d know better than any of these tasteless assclowns.” _

_ I snort a begrudging laugh. “Tasteless assclowns. All of ‘em.” _

_ The brief spark of conversation fizzles out again. I turn my scarlet iPod around and around in my fingers, earbuds plugged in but tangled limply in my lap. “Can I show you a song?” I ask. _

_ “Sure.” _

_ I unwind the wires and offer Murdoc the right one. I scroll through the list of recently downloaded songs, trying to find one he wouldn’t have already heard. What the hell do I play? It seems like he hates any music I like. What does it matter? He hates it or it doesn’t. I pick a song. “This Island” by Le Tigre. _

_ I stare pointedly out the window at a group of seagulls fighting over a newspaper cone of crisps. I don’t want to look like I’m waiting for his approval like a dog. I don’t need him to like the stupid song. He doesn’t open his eyes. Maybe he’s not even listening. There’s too much beeping and booping, the beat’s too simple, he’s gonna hate the vocals. Whatever. The song ends, and I yank the earbud out of my ear, ready to tuck my iPod away again. _

_ “It’s a good song,” he finally says. He doesn’t hand back the earbud.  _

_ “Do you actually like it or are you trying to get me to leave you alone?” _

_ “No, it’s good. I like it. Not something I woulda thought to find on my own.” He opens his eyes, turns his head to look at me. “What else you got?” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Anyone else feel like a lot of their childhood memories take place in a car or do I just really like being in the car? Call in! We're standing by  
> -If you have in-depth headcanons surrounding Murdoc being a dad to Noodle, sorry to hear about your strained and complicated relationship with your dad (I'm bitches)  
> -If you guys like this kind of style, let me know if you want more things like it as a one-shot cuz they're fun and easy to write and I'm sure I can come up with more. I'd like to try doing more with Phase 2 Russel  
> -I'm very excited for next week's chapter cuz I wrote it a while ago and I'm very proud of it


	25. 2001: The Record Deal Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback to the early days: The band has just signed their record deal, and Noodle has been waiting restlessly all week to experience her first party.

After over a year of working with and living under these three goons, Noodle’s picked up enough of their English and observed their faces and body language to know when they’re talking about her. She could tell Russel had reservations about letting her come to the Record Deal Party. “I already know what kind of a scene it’s going to be,” he’d said in that deep, softspoken voice of his. “No place for a little girl.”

“There’s three of us and one of her, you think we can’t keep track of her?” Murdoc had argued. “I’m not missing out on this do because we can’t get a bloody sitter.”

“She’s just as much of a part of the band as the rest of us, she deserves to celebrate too,” 2D had chimed in, jerking a thumb in her direction. 2D’s body language is always the easiest tell. The lad doesn’t have much sense for subtlety, even when Murdoc and Russel are trying to be more inconspicuous about their discussion of her. Though she could only piece together bits and pieces of their conversation, she could tell by the assuring smile he’d tossed her way that he’s advocating in her favor.

In the end, it was decided she’d go, and she’d lay awake all night with excitement waiting for Saturday to come. Since her memories begin with a Fed-Ex crate, she’d never been to a party of any sort, much less one where she’d be a guest of honor. She could tell it was a big deal-- big enough to put Murdoc in a grand old mood. In a positive lapse in character, he’d picked her up under her armpits and lifted her up like she was light as a sack of potatoes when they sealed the deal, grinning wide enough to put his cavities on full display: “Bloody magnificent, you little devil! You’re gonna put this band on the map!”

She’d been counting down the days until the party, buzzing with anticipation. Her normally tedious English lesson with that tutor that smells like old cabbage breezes by. She’d torn apart her minimal closet trying to pick out the perfect outfit, and shrieked with excitement when Russel promised to take her shopping. The outfit laid out on the chair in her room days in advance, waiting to be worn on what would surely be the best day of her life.

Even that special outfit had lost its glow several hours into this party. Her squeaky yellow jelly shoes are giving her blisters. Her feather boa is itchy. Though she’d misplaced her rhinestoned denim jacket an hour ago, the whole building is inescapably hot and the back of her dress is sticky with sweat. A week ago, she’d envisioned a red carpet, a chocolate fountain, a limo with a cheese pizza just for her-- Perhaps movies stretched the truth a little, but she’s gonna be a star, is it too much to at least ask for the chocolate fountain? The activities accessible to her had run dry quickly, and everyone here is old, like,  _ Murdoc-old _ . Beyond gushing over how cute she is-- who can blame them?-- no one seems interested in talking to her. Even her bandmates have gone AWOL. She wanders around in the same loop she’d walked a million times by now, tugging shirts and asking for Murdoc, 2D, Russel, a glass of water, or perhaps just some paper and markers?

At last, a familiar voice:

“And I says to this bloke,  _ oi mate, if you don’t bugger off, I’ll give you a free ride to the moon on the toe of my boot, how ‘bout that? _ ”

\--A a green oasis in this endless desert of slimy grown-ups and the stench of things she can’t drink: A familiar mop-head and Cuban heels off in a secluded corner, a long-legged woman with choppy highlights touching his arm and laughing, their chests nearly touching. 

Noodle barrels her way through guests in a bee-line towards him, crashing into Murdoc’s legs before he has the chance to register her sudden appearance.

The stripey-haired woman pulls away and they both look down at Noodle with wide eyes.

“Mur-doc!” Noodle shouts, gripping his leg like a lifesaver.

“Whose kid is that?” The stripey-haired woman asks.

“Uh, Russel’s!” Murdoc says, prying Noodle off his leg.

“They’re not even the same race!” The woman says incredulously.

“I’m tired!” Noodle cries.

“I’m in the middle of something, love, why don’t you go find Russ or 2D? 2D’ll play with you.  _ Jaa ne _ , little chickie!”

Before she can open her mouth to respond, he’s spun her around, and with two  _ run-along now _ pats on her back, returns to his conversation with the woman.

“Did I already mention the part about the moon and my boot?”

Noodle elects not to push further and walks off to look for the others. What time is it? There are no clocks on the walls. The carpet pattern is geometric, endless, maddening. She plants one foot inside one of the rectangles, then the other in the next. She picks up her left foot, hops to the next rectangle, and winces. Her feet hurt too much for impromptu hopscotch. She’ll have to take the normal route back downstairs.

* * *

After tugging on more shirts, relaying the same request--tall, blue, with the eyes?-- a man with a rumpled tie and red eyes points her in some direction with a meaty finger. “Shaw ‘im go inna dat room ‘bout ‘n hour ago. ‘Aven’t seen ‘im leave, e’s prolly still ‘ere.”

Noodle nods, and with an  _ arigatou gozaimasu _ , scampers off to find 2D. There’s muffled talking on the other side of the door. She puts her ear to the wood. The voice she’s looking for garbles vaguely among them.

Noodle raps on the door and the voices stop. She swings it open, crying “ _ Two-dee! _ ” to find him hunched over a table in the dark with a bunch of other people, all looking at her with startled faces. Doubled over with a migraine? They all look like they’ve been caught. Doing  _ what _ is not important to her at the moment.

“Two-dee!”

2D picks up his head and whips around to face her, covering his nose with his bony hand.

“Noodle! Uh! Go away! Go find Murdoc! Or Russ! Don’t look!” 2D leans his long body over and reaches out to shut the door.

“ _ Daijōbu _ ? Your nose?”

“I’m fine, just go!”

The door shuts in her face, leaving her with one last option and more to worry about. Do these people know what to do when 2D has a migraine coming on? Does he have his medicine? She has to find Russel.

* * *

“Bar is eighteen and up, kid, you can’t sit here.”

“Russel? Big? Bald? With the ghost eyes?” Noodle hoists herself up on a stool to look over the counter at the bartender. 

“Oh, yeah. He’s been here on and off. I think he went to the bathroom. Do you wanna wait for him? He’s been gone a while.”

“Find him. Bathroom?”

“That door. Knock first.”

Noodle hardly utters her thanks before jumping down to bang on the bathroom door.

“Russel! Russel!”

At last, the door opens and she finds herself looking up at the man she’s been looking for. She wraps her arms tightly around his legs, and in return, he puts a large, calloused hand on her head.

“Is everything okay, sweetheart?”

“Home soon?”

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know. I want to go home.”

Russel rubs his face. He speaks slowly, quietly, despite the cacophony around them. “I don’t think Murdoc’s gonna wanna leave yet. But maybe we can get a taxi home. Where’s 2D?”

Noodle wrings her hands, trying to conjure the English words in her head. “Room upstairs. On right side.” She holds up her fingers in an “L” shape and gestures with her right hand. “ _ Hai _ , right. Something with his nose.”

Russel furrows his eyebrows like her words are taking an extra second to register. He seems tired too, but that’s not unusual. He’s far away; his mind is in a different place-- a sad place. She suddenly feels guilty for bothering him.

“His nose?”

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Nothing to be sorry about, sweetheart. I’ll find him. Go sit.”

With that, Russel nudges her gently aside and lumbers upstairs to look for 2D. She chews the cuticles on her thumb. Is 2D gonna be in trouble for something? What if he gets mad at her for getting him in trouble? He’s never gotten mad at her before-- hopefully, this won’t be the first time. She wouldn’t want Russel more upset either. There seem to be other things on his mind right now. Perhaps he was right, that this is no place for a little girl. Noodle slides down against the wall, parks herself on the floor, and yanks off her shoes.

“Hey, kid,” the Bartender says. “Noodle? You can sit up here if you want. No one’s gonna bother you about it. You want a soda?”

Noodle nods, stands up again, plunks her shoes down by an empty barstool. She hoists herself up onto the stool and sits with her legs tucked. The bartender slides a glass of coke across the counter. As she reaches for it, he says “wait,” and plops a tiny paper umbrella into the glass with a smile. Noodle smiles back meekly and accepts the soda.

“You’re the guitarist?”

She nods.

“You must be bloody talented. Good luck, kid.”

Noodle raises her glass, kind of like the way Murdoc does when he’s being sardonic about “drinking to his good health,” but she hopes it doesn’t come across that way. 

“Cheers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Next chapter will be the last one, which is crazy. I'm looking forward to being done with this fic so I can work on other projects, but I'm glad the response has been so positive, and I'll be sure to post more one-shots if I think of them  
> -If I could go back to the beginning of this fic and change some things I'd definitely do so, and maybe I'll talk about things I'd do differently next update. But overall, it's not bad, I think  
> -The reach for each update has severely dropped since I stopped posting the weekly chapter illustrations, and I'll try to get to the ones I'm missing when I have time, so thank you to everyone who's been reading every week!


	26. Friend Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noodle wants to have a good time at the album release party, but Cyborg has been left to her own devices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: This fic exists in a timeline where there’s no Covid :(

Noodle slides between partygoers like a credit card with “‘scuse me, ‘scuse me,” precariously holding three drinks. She can’t remember the last time Kong has been the host of such a gathering, and the room is like a hotbox of energy, making her head buzz with excitement. She’s forgotten how much she loves being around other people.

Murdoc’s sponging up the atmosphere as well; his gravelly voice rings clear over the rest of the noise as he hams up some yarn he’s spinning to a group of people. She can see him in the living room, one hand around the neck of a beer bottle, the other waving around with the wildness of his story. His shirt is unbuttoned obnoxiously low: he’s switched into party mode, with gold-detailed Cuban heels to impress.

Off in the corner, 2D is doing what he does best: being stupidly charming, a woman with gray streaks and an open-backed pantsuit laughing at whatever he’s saying. It must be really funny because Noodle can see the woman slide a ring off her finger and put it in her pocket. None of her business.

As Noodle turns a corner and heads downstairs, the noise dampens to polite conversation. Russel, in a circle of people sitting in the den, debates something Noodle’s not interested enough in to stop and listen to. Their words dissipate like the smoke of the incense burning on the side table, its smell growing distant as Noodle reaches Miku and Ace tucked away in the game room from the goings-on upstairs.

“Ay, badabing!” Ace says, taking his drink from Noodle. “This one’s just soda, right?”

“Mhm,” Noodle says. She kisses Miku’s cheek as she hands her the drink.

“How are things going up there?” Miku asks.

“Good, it’s been so long since we had a party like this at all, especially one where nothing’s on fire,” Noodle says. “I mean, there’s still time. I think 2D’s charming another married woman.”

“Another? Does it happen often?” Miku asks.

“Yeah, he doesn’t do it on purpose, they just like him.”

Ace sighs. “Man, what do I gotta do?”

“Be married, I guess,” Noodle says.

“What about Cyborg? What’s she up to?” Miku asks.

“I don’t know, the guys are supposed to be watching her,” Noodle says, shrugging.

“You didn’t see her?”

“No,” Noodle sips her drink. “It’s not my job to look after her, and it’s not like she’s up there biting guests.”

“She’s probably fine, but she does like to put batteries in her mouth, maybe you should go check,” Ace says.

“There are so many people here, someone’s gotta be watching her. I wanna enjoy my party! I wanna hang out with my girlfriend!” Noodle wraps her arms around Miku’s shoulders.

“Just go ask the others, I’m not going anywhere,” Miku says.

“Fine. Only because you asked.”

Noodle hands her drink to Miku and treks back to the den. She knocks on the doorway to summon Russel’s attention.

“Do you know where Cyborg is?”

“No, 2D was watching her.”

Noodle rolls her eyes. “Well, he’s busy being an accessory to adultery. So I guess I gotta go find her.”

“We lost her?”

“No! 2D lost her!” Noodle adjusts her dress and stomps up the stairs. On her way, she stops a guest passing by. “Have you seen a kid around here? About this tall, fringe covering her eyes, probably carrying around an iPad?”

The woman shakes her head.

“Great,” Noodle says. “Thanks anyway,”

***

“And I said ‘Tether? I hardly know her!’ Hawhawhawhaw!”

“Murdoc, where’s Cyborg?”

“Huh?” Murdoc pulls his attention away from his tall-tale and looks at her.

“Cyborg, you know, your kid? Where is she?”

“Oh yeah, uh, would you mind watching her for a minute, love? I’m in the middle of something.” Murdoc turns his back on her. “Right, as I was saying…” 

“I don’t know where she is! She’s probably cutting your breaks or something right now, you—“

Something catches Noodle’s eye outside the glass doors on the balcony: a rectangular, blue light. She locomotives her way past guests, grabs a blanket off the couch and wraps it around her shoulders as she throws the door open. Cyborg looks up at her, crouched on the ground, drawing on her iPad.

“Jesus Christ, kid! No one knew where you were!”

Cyborg looks down at her iPad, but doesn’t continue drawing.

“I’m trying to enjoy my party, I don’t need to run around making sure you’re not getting into trouble!” A frigid wind blows through her, making her bare knees knock together and her teeth chatter. “It’s fucking freezing out here!” She throws the blanket over Cyborg’s shoulders despite the wind biting her skin. Cyborg doesn’t react.

“Right, you can’t even feel it,” Noodle mutters to herself. But it feels wrong to take the blanket away, so she doesn’t. She rubs her own arms and shifts her weight back and forth. 

Cyborg opens her text-to-speech app and taps at the screen: “ _ No one wants to be with me. _ ”

“Oh…” Noodle says, her words falling away. “I’m sure that’s not true. Come inside, we’ll find-”

“ _ They all sent me away. _ ”

Noodle looks down, trying to muster what to say next. “Everyone’s older than you. You can’t communicate the same way they do. Even if they’re not ignoring you on purpose, they just don’t know what to do with you.” Noodle sighs. “Doesn’t make it right.” She crouches down to Cyborg’s level. “Can you at least come inside so  _ I _ don’t freeze to death?”

Cyborg stands up and follows Noodle inside.

“What were you drawing?”

Cyborg holds up the iPad. Noodle squints at her rendition of Goya’s  _ Saturn Devouring His Son _ . She nods.

“Hey, that’s pretty good. You know, that’s Murdoc’s second favorite painting after  [ Hieronymous Bosch ](https://www.hieronymus-bosch.org/) ’s  _ Hell 2 _ . You’re doing a good job.”

Cyborg looks down at her drawing, then back up at Noodle, and-- uncharacteristically-- a smile spreads across her face. Noodle grins back. 

“Have you tried drawing something of your own? I bet you could come up with something even better.”

“AND THERE I WAS!” Murdoc’s voice barks from a mile away, pulling Noodle and Cyborg’s attention. He’s standing on the coffee table now, waving his beer around like a jubilant medieval king. “And the shark was  _ this _ close! I was ‘lookin right into its dark, beady eyes!”

“Oh great, he’s on the table again. It’s not even 1 am,” Noodle says.

Cyborg types into her iPad: “ _ Russel says he likes to feel tall. _ ”

Noodle laughs a laugh out of left field. She’s not sure if it was funny on purpose, but what does it matter?

“And I says,  _ you’re _ gonna need a bigger boat, Chum! And I  _ punched _ that sucker-- you know, it’s a myth that you gotta punch ‘em in the nose-- so I  _ punched _ that sucker in the gills!” Murdoc demonstrates a right hook with his free hand, lurching his body forward in a dreadful miscalculation and throwing him off balance. Murdoc leans back in a pitiful attempt to save himself, swinging his arms. With a “FUCKIN HELL!” the table flips and sends him crashing. Despite the disastrous journey to the floor, Murdoc holds up his beer victoriously. “Didn’t spill it, bitches!”

Noodle keels over cackling with her hands on her knees. She looks up at Cyborg, her head tilted back, mouth open, eyes shut, a silent laugh. Noodle straightens up and rustles Cyborg’s hair. She smiles. “Come hang out with me, this party’s lame anyway.”

***

“Ayy, look what the cat dragged in! Cyborg, where’d ya find this piece-a work?”

“Ugh, you’re still here? I thought you were on the next bus to Townsville. Out of my seat.”

Ace scoots over on the couch to make space for Noodle, who sits down, legs crossed, tugging her sparkly blue dress into place.

Cyborg stands in the doorway, holding her iPad to her chest as if the entrance was sprinkled with holy water.

“What are ya ‘standin over there ‘bein a stranger for? Come siddown!” Ace says, waving her over. Miku smiles and moves over from the couch to a 70s plastic chair, patting the cushion where she once sat. Cyborg cautiously approaches, sitting between Noodle and Miku.

“I like your outfit,” Miku chirps warmly. “Did you pick it out?”

Cyborg looks down at her ensemble: Bright red pants, black turtleneck, bomber jacket borrowed from 2D-- it is a cool outfit. She nods.

“She was showing me her drawings,” Noodle says. “She’s good! You should show them, Cy.”

Miku and Ace lean in as Cyborg swipes through her photo gallery.

“Ay, that is good! How come you don’t got none of that talent, Noodle? Don’t you have the same DNA?”

“Technically  _ yeah _ but she’s not like, a copy of me. I think we’re more like--”

“Sisters,” Miku chimes in.

Cyborg shakes her head and opens her text-to-speech app.  _ Taptaptaptaptap _ . “ _ Not a girl _ .”

“Alright, siblings.” Noodle says. “It balances out, anyway. We both shred on guitar, and she can also draw, run math equations at computer-speed, shoot bullets from her body, and I spilled milk on myself this morning. So we’re even.”

“So everything’s good now?” Miku asks.

“Yeah. I think we’ll get along just fine now.”

_ Taptaptaptap.  _ “ _ She was jealous I got to be baby and she has to pay taxes _ .”

“Hey!”

Russel pokes his head around the doorway and taps his knuckles on the wall. “Do you guys want anything from upstairs?”

“ _ Cup of ice _ .” Cyborg types.

“Get one for Murdoc too, while you’re at it. He fell off the coffee table again,” Noodle adds.

“Did he live?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn. Alright, I’ll be right back with Cyborg’s ice,” and with that, he leaves them alone again.

As if manifesting in Russel’s place, 2D turns the corner and waves, his hair tousled and lipstick smudged on his face.

“Ay Stu, what’s up? I thought you were busy,” Ace says, sitting up and leaning forward with interest.

“I forgot it was my turn to check on Cyborg, sorry ‘bout that. I’ll take her if you want,” 2D says.

“No, that’s okay,” Noodle says. “We’re having a good time.” 2D raises his eyebrows. 

“Oh, alroight, you sure?”

_ Tapptaptaptaptap _ . “ _ We’re having fun. And not a girl anymore _ .”

“Roight, gotcha. Mind if I hide out down here? I fink I got myself into a pre-predica-predicime-predic-- I fink that bird is married.”

“Yeah, of course!” Ace says. “You wanna play a round of Mortal Kombat?”

“Sure!”

Ace gets up and hops over the back of the couch as he and 2D go off to the other side of the game room.

“ _ I want to play too. _ ”

“Go ahead, keep them at least one bible-space apart,” Noodle says, sending Cyborg on their way.

Miku leans over and plants a big kiss on Noodle’s cheek. “I’m proud of you,” she says.

“So I’m not the baby anymore. I spent so long trying to pretend I didn’t want to be. There’s no use taking it out on this kid who never asked to be dragged into our mess of a band. We’re not gonna be perfect, but we’re gonna try.”

“I would love to be a part of that mess.”

“You wanna be in the band? Sorry, we already have a hot Japanese girl  _ and  _ a blue-haired singer, but you can leave your application on my desk.”

“You know what I mean,” Miku says, giggling.

Noodle takes Miku’s face in her guitar-calloused hands and kisses her forehead, leaving a red lipstick print on her skin. “I’m so happy to have you as part of my huge mess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow guys we did it, isn't that crazy? I'm declaring this fic finished, buuuuuut if people want it I'll post an epilogue cuz I just can't stay away uwu. I hope you guys enjoyed this fic. There are definitely things I'd change or do differently but overall I'm happy with it and I accomplished what I set out to do. I hope this was a worthwhile deviation from all the 2Doc smut on here. No one asked for a Noodle x Miku fic with feelings, but now it exists nonetheless. I'll still post one-shots every so often as I think of them, but for now, I have to focus on other projects (like Plan Z, which you should read, or else). Also, would you be mad if I started writing Creepypasta fanfiction? Leave a comment if you'd hunt me for sport <3

**Author's Note:**

> -I have over six chapters already written, so I'll be updating every Friday  
> -I'll also be posting one-shots that don't really have anything to do with the main storyline. Those I'll just post as I finish them  
> -It gets less silly after this, this is as stupid as the story gets  
> -I'll figure out a way to incorporate Katsu don't worry  
> -There's gonna be more characters showing up later :3c  
> -I have a lot of Thoughts about Noodle's dad/daughter dynamic with Murdoc and Russel!!  
> -Please comment your thoughts/feelings/things you'd like to see I love hearing from people  
> -I also have an original comic called Plan Z, you can read it here https://sammijlewis66.wixsite.com/planz


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